


In Times of Trouble

by goldensnitch18



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Soul Bond, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-01 11:55:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 43,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14519997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldensnitch18/pseuds/goldensnitch18
Summary: In Times of Trouble, magic has a way of working things out. Unfortunately for Hermione, magic has decided that she needs to save the very last person she ever expected. 6th/7th Dramione Bond.





	1. Sectumsempra

Chapter One: Sectumsempra

Hermione was sure that she had made a mistake on her last Arithmancy essay. It struck her as she was walking down to dinner with Harry and Ron. Ron had thrown his hand over his mouth as if he was going to be sick again, darted down the hall ahead of them and into the bathroom, and it hit her. She stopped walking immediately. 

“Oh no,” she said, her voice quiet as Harry turned to look at her with confusion. 

“He’ll be fine,” he assured her, obviously thinking that she was worried about Ron, when this was entirely not the truth. Ron was being a bit silly honestly. It was a Quidditch match, not something actually important like her essay, and she was still a bit sore about his treatment of her over the Gryffindor and Slytherin match months ago. Ron had thought Harry had given him the Felix also, but she had been the one to be blamed for thinking that had been why everything had gone right that day. 

“No,” Hermione corrected him. “It’s not that. I’ve messed up my Arithmancy essay. I just know it.” She had. She could see it in her head now. She had gotten the date wrong when mentioning the Chaldeans of Arabia. The whole thing would be a disaster now. 

“It’s almost time for dinner. Surely it can wait until tomorrow?” Harry asked, as if this was a perfectly acceptable thing for her to do. 

She scoffed and shook her head. They would never understand. She would be up all night staring at the ceiling of her bed if she didn’t get it straightened out now. “I’ll just go see Professor Vector now. I’ll catch you at dinner.”

Harry looked at her,]\\\ incredulous. She knew he thought she was crazy, but that didn’t much matter. “Okay. See you there,” he said, but she was already turning away from him, her feet carrying her quickly down the hall. 

She hoped Professor Vector was in her office. She was already worried about too many things these days and adding a horrible Arithmancy mark to the things she needed to fret about wasn’t something she was interested in. Hopefully, the Professor would allow her to change the mistake, or maybe rewrite the essay. She could do that. She would find a way to fit it in, surely. She had lessons, and the extra time she was spending on Potions to keep up with Harry, and the research she was still doing about the Prince, and research about anything that might help Harry defeat Voldemort, but she could rewrite the essay as well. She could fit that in somewhere. Maybe she would just not go to the stupid Quidditch Match. That would give her time to do it. 

Hermione reached Professor Vector’s office fifteen minutes later, her hair starting to fall out of the tie that had been holding it, and her breath coming in quick unsteady bursts. She had run back to the Gryffindor Tower to grab her bag and then to the Arithmancy classroom. She knocked insistently on the door and waited as she began to rifle through the text in her arms. She knew it was wrong. She just needed to find the right annotation. 

“Hermione? Shouldn’t you be down to dinner?” Professor Vector asked after she had opened the door. 

“Oh, yes, I suppose, it’s just that …” Hermione breathed heavily between the words, clutching at her chest as she spoke. She had really winded herself. She should exercise more. Make Ron and Harry take fewer shortcuts to avoid the stairs. 

“Are you all right, dear?” The woman touched her fingers to Hermione’s elbow as if she was worried her student might collapse. Hermione waved her hand to excuse her appearance and heavy breathing. 

“Just ran here. I’m fine. I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake.” She continued to turn pages, but it was getting harder to breathe instead of easier. Small white spots were beginning to dance before her eyes. 

“Why don’t you come in and sit down?” Professor Vector asked, her hand firmly wrapped around Hermione’s forearm now, pulling her in. 

Hermione let her lead her into the room, trying to focus her eyes. “I’m really fine,” she said and then the spots grew rapidly, taking over her vision, and she was falling. 

XXX

As Hermione regained consciousness, she heard voices she was not expecting. “What are you going to tell them?” Professor Snape hissed. His voice was low, and she wasn’t quite sure that she had even heard him correctly, but she was quite sure that she was not supposed to be listening. She kept her body still and her eyes closed. 

“Nothing,” Professor Dumbledore replied. 

“They deserve to know the truth,” Professor Snape insisted, and Hermione wondered who they were talking about. Harry? But, who else? Her and Ron maybe? 

“They deserve a world free of Voldemort,” Professor Dumbledore replied. That could be anyone really. They all deserved that, but Harry in particular. He didn’t deserve to have his life stripped from him, his choices all but stolen. This impossible task given to him. She and Ron didn’t deserve it either. They would help him. She already knew it, was planning for it, but it wasn’t a choice really. Harry was her brother, and he needed her. 

“I don’t understand how this changes that,” Professor Snape told the Headmaster. 

“This would change everything. It would put his entire family in danger.” Not Harry then. Unless it was the Dursley’s, but she wasn’t sure that made any sense. It could be Ron, but why would they be whispering about Ron wherever she was? Probably the Hospital Wing. She seemed to have fainted in Professor Vector’s office, and that seemed the logical place to take her. 

“You’re putting them both in danger if you don’t tell them,” Snape said, and he sounded more human than Hermione had ever imagined he could sound. It was unnerving to hear him so desperately concerned for anyone, and she began to consider opening her eyes. 

“Better to risk a possibility than a certainty.” There was a slam of a hand against something, perhaps the wall. 

“Do you listen to yourself when you speak?” Professor Snape asked, furious.

“Right now, they need to be protected,” Professor Dumbledore told him. He remained calm and soft spoken. “You are protecting him, and I will protect her.” 

“Protecting him? He will hardly speak to me,” Professor Snape hissed. 

“This is my final word on the subject, Severus. We will not tell them.” There came the quick approach of footsteps. 

“What are you two doing?” Madame Pomfrey demanded. “How are these children supposed to rest with you slamming things in my wing?” 

“Our apologies Poppy,” Dumbledore said. “We’ll be going. Let me know when they wake please.” They. Someone else was here. Could that be who they were talking about? She would be the her then, and Dumbledore was protecting her somehow? But who was the him? Someone that Snape was protecting who wouldn’t speak to him … 

No. What could they possibly have to relate the two of them? It couldn’t be. 

“Yes, I will. Now, good night to you both,” the witch said with finality, and the three of them seemed to move toward the door. Hermione waited a full minute before she opened her eyes. The hospital wing was dark, but soft light poured in through the large windows, and her sight adjusted quickly. She looked around the room until she spotted him two beds down from hers, still asleep, or unconscious. It was him. It was Draco Malfoy. 

They deserve to know the truth. What truth could they possibly have to learn? Why was he here? Had something happened to him? What had happened to her? She had been winded, but surely she wouldn’t have fainted just from walking quickly through the castle. She did it all the time. 

“You’re awake,” Madame Pomfrey said from across the room. Hermione had missed her return. The older witch moved quickly over to Hermione as she drew her wand. “I don’t know how you couldn’t be with the racket they were making. This is a hospital. How are you feeling?” 

Hermione blinked, trying to take stock of her body. She felt inexplicably sore. “Fine. Tired,” she croaked. 

Madame Pomfrey waved her wand at the pitcher next to the bed, and it began to pour into the glass beside it as she went to work examining Hermione with her wand. “We aren’t sure what happened dear. Professor Vector said you seemed to have run to her office and just fainted.” 

“Yes,” Hermione agreed, grabbing the glass in front of her from the air. She sipped at the water, and the cool liquid soothed her sore throat as it traveled down. 

“Well, you still need to rest.” The witch put her wand away and felt Hermione’s forehead with the back of her palm. “I’ll check on you in the morning, and you should be able to go tomorrow evening if you’re continuing to improve.” 

“Okay,” Hermione responded. Her eyes slipped over to Draco. “What happened?” she asked. 

“He, well” — Madame Pomfrey looked over at the other bed — “He’ll be here a little while.” She waved her hand and handed Hermione a bottle that appeared inside of it. “Drink this. It will help you sleep some more.” Hermione wanted to ask for clarification, to know what had happened to Malfoy, but it was clear that she would get none. Instead, she swallowed the liquid under the sharp watch of Madame Pomfrey and laid back against her pillows. She faced away from Malfoy, but she heard Madame Pomfrey move a screen between them right before her eyes fluttered shut once more. 

XXX

“You did what?” Hermione asked. 

“I didn’t know!” Harry insisted. He at least had the sense to look ashamed as he told her what he had done to Malfoy the next day. He had cut Malfoy open with one of those stupid Prince spells. He had described the incident as his face grew pale, his eyes downcast. 

“I told you there was something wrong with that Prince person,” Hermione said, unable to stop herself in her anger. “And I was right, wasn’t I?” 

“No, I don’t think you were,” Harry said, and her jaw dropped open. 

“Are you serious? How can you still stick up for that book when that spell —” 

“Will you stop harping on about the book!” Harry snapped. “The Prince only copied it out. It’s not like he was advising anyone to use it! For all we know, he was making a note of something that had been used against him!” 

“I don’t believe this,” Hermione said. “You’re actually defending —” 

“I’m not defending what I did,” Harry said. “You know I wouldn’t use a spell like that, not even on Malfoy, but you can’t blame the Prince.” 

“You better not go back and get that book, Harry,” she demanded. “It deserves to rot in that room.” 

“I am going to get it,” Harry countered. “Without the Prince, I’d never have won the Felix Felicis. I’d never have saved Ron from poisoning. I’d never have —” 

“— got a reputation for Potions brilliance you don’t deserve.” She knew she was being nasty, but she didn’t care. Harry was being ridiculous. He had nearly killed Malfoy, and he was still going to go back and get that stupid book.

“Give it a rest, Hermione!” Ginny said. “By the sound of it, Malfoy was trying to use an Unforgivable. You should be glad Harry had something good up his sleeve.” 

“Of course I’m glad Harry wasn’t cursed!” Hermione said, indignant. “But, you can’t call that Sectumsempra spell good, Ginny! Look where it’s landed him! And I’d have thought, seeing what this has done to your chances in the match —” 

“Oh, don’t start acting as though you understand Quidditch,” Ginny snapped, “you’ll only embarrass yourself.” Hermione huffed, turning away from Ginny in her chair to fold her arms over one another as Ron and Harry stared at them, bewildered. She would have thought, of anyone, Ginny would be on her side. She had been against the stupid book in the beginning as well. Hermione was sure that if the other girl didn’t still have lingering feelings for Harry, Ginny wouldn’t be as quick to dismiss Hermione’s misgivings. 

“How are you feeling, Hermione?” Ron asked slowly, and she shook her head. 

“I’m fine. I just fainted,” she told him.

“That’s a bit odd though,” Harry added, no doubt glad for the change of subject. 

“I hadn’t eaten, and I ran back to the tower and to Professor Vector’s office,” Hermione explained, though she herself wasn’t sure what had happened and wasn’t pleased with this explanation. 

“You do that all the time,” Ron argued. “You go off to talk to a Professor and run across half the castle to get there. You go days on less food than a mouse when you’re in one of your strides. You’ve never fainted before.” 

She knew this was true. She had never felt the way she had the day before as she stood in that doorway. The timing of her fall had not escaped her notice. She had fainted at precisely the same time Draco Malfoy was being attacked by her best friend. Now that she had these missing pieces of what had happened to Malfoy from Harry, she was almost certain that the Headmaster and the Potions Professor had been talking about them. What exactly could they have been referring to? They were keeping something from them that tied them together somehow. Hermione hated not knowing things. It was simply unacceptable to be aware that there was something about herself that she did not know. 

And to be linked with Malfoy? How did that make any sense at all? She and Malfoy rarely even acknowledged each other these days. It didn’t add up. 

Professor Dumbledore had claimed that he would protect her, that she needed protection, but if Harry ended up going off to look for horcruxes as she expected, would the Headmaster be going with? That seemed unlikely. She wasn’t sure that the Headmaster had ever had any particular interest in her. If she needed protecting, she would prefer to handle it herself. She was quite capable and not in need of being treated like a child. 

And Professor Snape had said himself that Malfoy wasn’t speaking to him, which was corroborated by what Harry had overheard after Slughorn’s Christmas party. Something was going on. Something that had to do with her. Something that had possibly made her faint when Malfoy had been near to dying. It seemed ridiculous and quite impossible, but she was learning that nearly nothing was impossible when it came to magic if you were just willing to work hard enough. You could split your soul or create an elixir to live forever. You could save someone you loved from a killing curse by sacrificing yourself. You could make someone fall in love with you. Was it really so crazy to imagine that something had happened to her at precisely the same moment as Draco Malfoy had been hit with that curse? It was a terrifying prospect really, but one that she knew she needed to research more. 

“I’m going to the library,” she said suddenly, pushing up from the armchair. She needed to do something. She was obviously serving no purpose here arguing with Harry about a book. She would be much better off in the library looking into what could have caused this. 

“Now?” Ron asked. 

“Shouldn’t you rest?” Harry stared at her, wide eyed. 

“I just fainted. I’m not dying,” Hermione told them. She grabbed her bag from the floor beside her chair and started toward the portrait hole. “See you all later.” 

“She’s barmy,” Ron said quietly behind her, and she chose to ignore him.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: What Came Before

Over the next two weeks, Hermione spent nearly all of her free time in the library alone. Harry and Ginny had finally gotten together after the final Quidditch match of the year resulting in Harry spending nearly every moment of his free time with her. Ron was living in a post win euphoria and seemed unable to be brought down by anything, even his two best friends abandoning him for his sister and books. This was good because Hermione really didn’t want either one of them following her around the library as she devoured book after book searching for some mention of any kind of magic that might be responsible for what had happened to her and Malfoy. 

In the back of her mind, she knew she could just go to Professor Snape, tell him she’d overheard him and Professor Dumbledore speaking, and hope he would explain. This was really a last resort in her mind. He had seemed to think that not telling them was wrong in the hospital wing, but he had probably been considering Malfoy’s well being much more than her own when speaking. Hermione was beginning to think more and more that she might have to take the risk and approach him, but it would be nice to have something more to go off than the vague conversation she had heard and the knowledge that she had passed out at the same time Draco Malfoy was attacked by her best friend. 

Meanwhile, Draco had returned to classes looking pale and more tired than ever. Something was clearly very wrong with him. Hermione wasn’t sure what it was. She wasn’t convinced of Harry’s theory, but it seemed to be something bad for certain. She was paying more attention to him now than she ever had before. The dark circles under his eyes and his absence at meals spoke volumes. She wondered if it was something to do with his family. Perhaps his mother? Harry’s own attention to the Slytherin was momentarily distracted by his new romance, and likely guilt over what had happened, but she was sure Harry would find some reason to question the other boy’s motives again soon enough. 

As the end of the year loomed closer, more and more students joined Hermione in the library, making it harder for her to accomplish any real research on the topic. Even Harry and Ron had taken to spending a night or two at a table with her, work spread wide in front of them, quills dashing across parchment as they finished essays. It was on one of these nights that she finally found something. She was bent over an Arithmancy problem, Harry was studying Defense spells, and Ron was moaning about his Transfiguration essay. She was very aware that his next step would be to ask her to read over hers to get some pointers. 

To avoid this inevitability, Hermione stood, made an excuse about needing a book, and quickly walked away from their table. It wasn’t that she minded helping them really. She didn’t. It was more that she knew they were more than capable of doing it themselves if they just stopped complaining and glanced in a text book. There was nothing wrong with Harry or Ron’s brains. The pair of them just hated school work, which was no reason for her to hand it to them on a platter. She preferred to believe that they would remember the work better if they did it themselves. So, sometimes, when it was something that she believed they needed to actually understand for themselves, or when they were being particularly annoying, she would force them to figure it out on their own, and that didn’t hurt them at all. 

Hermione walked through aisle after aisle, moving further and further away from their table, seeking some part of the library that didn’t have students holed up studying. After several long minutes, she found an abandoned corner and let her eyes fall closed as she breathed deeply the smell of paper and bindings. She let the familiarity wash over her, seeping into her skin. This was her very favorite place in the world, and it gave her more comfort than most other things in her life were capable of. 

She had felt a personal offense the last couple weeks that she hadn’t been able to locate anything helpful. It was devastating, as devastating as her separation from Ron had been in the beginning. Slowly, as the months had trickled on, Hermione had started to let the idea of being with Ron go. He was with Lavender, and it hurt, but if that was the way he wanted it, then she would let go. It had started as false statements of her acceptance and steadily shifted into truth. He was her friend. She was quite glad that he had broken up with Lavender. Her roommate was annoying, and Hermione did not care to have to endure any more time with her than was absolutely necessary. But the breakup did not reignite her hopes that there would one day be a Ron and Hermione. She had asked him to Slughorn’s party, and he had buggered it up. She wasn’t going to continue to sit around and wait for him to wake up and realize that she was ready. Now, she was comfortable with their friendship restored and the separation ignored. 

As for the library, no matter how ridiculous it might seem, it was proving harder to forgive or move on from its disappointment. Books were her answer to nearly every problem she had faced in the magical world. She hadn’t grown up with any of this, so she relied on her research to give her all the information she needed. When it came to this particular situation, there seemed to be no answers among these hallowed walls, and that was a hard truth to accept for Hermione Granger, who trusted very few things or people. 

She sighed heavily as she opened her eyes, reaching out her fingers to touch the spines before her. She was in the lineage section. The books here were all old family records of marriages, children, feuds, inheritance, and deaths. She had visited this section for History of Magic research several times. She had examined many of these books before, knew they contained no answers. Even so, she reached for one she had not read which looked particularly old and pulled it from the shelf. She didn’t want to go back to the table just yet. She wasn’t ready to deal with Ron and his essay, so she sat down carefully cradling the text in her hands like a child. She could feel the fragile binding ready to crack beneath her fingers as she began to read. 

XXX

Hermione knocked on the door fervently, feeling out of breath once again. She had hurried back to the table in the library before shoving her books into her bag as Harry and Ron watched, jaws dropped at her sudden desire to leave. 

“Where are you going?” Ron had asked. 

“I have to speak to Professor Snape,” she had told them, her mind screaming the question she needed answered immediately. She was starting to feel very hot, her tie tight around her throat. 

“Let me come with you,” Ron said, no doubt remembering what had happened the last time she had run off to see a Professor. 

“No. You both stay here. He’ll be bad enough if it’s just me. If you’re there he won’t want to be civil at all,” she explained. Harry was serving detentions with Snape for his Sectumsempra, and Ron nearly never failed to annoy the Potions Master. Even if she had no interest in sharing this particular issue with them yet, she would still leave them behind. 

“Okay,” Ron had agreed reluctantly. “Just … walk.” 

“I’ll be fine,” she had told them, pulling her bag over her shoulder.

She had not walked. She had run as quickly as she dared to be standing in front of Professor Snape’s office, beating on the door with her fist. In the middle of her third series of pounding, the door quickly swung open to reveal the unpleasant man himself looking dark and furious in his black robes. 

“Miss Granger, what exactly are you —” 

“Do I have to marry him?” she blurted out. She hadn’t intended it. Honestly, she hadn’t really thought what she would say when the door opened. This meant that the question that had been screaming over and over in her head had come tumbling out of her mouth when she saw him.

Professor Snape stood stunned before her for several long moments. His eyes raked back and forth across her face, searching for something. “Come in,” he snapped finally, moving aside for her to walk past him. He shut the door quickly behind her and moved to sit behind his desk. Hermione followed, taking the seat across from him, her heart racing and knees bouncing as she held the book to her belly, which rose and fell quickly as her lungs tried to catch up with her activity.

“What exactly are you referring to?” the Professor asked, his usual indifferent annoyance back in place. The momentary glance into whoever he was behind the mask had gone. 

“This … whatever between Malfoy and I. Do I have to marry him?” she asked again, deciding to just get her answer and be done with it. No need to beat around what she wanted to know now that it was already between them. 

“How did —” he began, but then seemed to think better of it. “Why do you think that?” he asked instead. 

“I was reading this,” she told him. The chair skidded loudly against the stone as she moved it closer in order to place the book on his desk. She had marked the page with a small piece of parchment. She watched him closely as he opened it and stared down at the words, eyes flicking with startling speed across the page. 

After a few minutes, he read aloud, “‘husband and wife are rendered inseparable by the joining of their two magical cores into one.’” 

“Is that what happened to us?” she whispered, terrified to even hear the answer but desperately needing it as well. The idea of sharing her magic with Draco Malfoy was beyond horrifying, and she had no idea what it even meant. 

“Have you been involved in any marriage ceremonies lately, Miss Granger?” Professor Snape asked coldly. 

“No, of course not,” she said, allowing her tone to reflect his own. 

“Then I hardly suspect you should be worried about this particular issue or being forced to marry Mr. Malfoy.” He closed the book setting it to the side of his desk. “His parents would certainly not allow it.” 

“But, there is something. Isn’t there?” she asked. She was sure of it now. She hadn’t known if it was possible before, but now she had seen it mentioned in the book. It was suddenly all too real, all too possible. “Sir,” she added, remembering herself and their respective positions. 

Professor Snape stared again, his dark black eyes hiding any sign of what he was thinking. “I’m not sure what you think you know, but I —” 

“I heard you and Professor Dumbledore in the Hospital Wing. I know I fainted at the same time Harry cast that spell at Malfoy. I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on, but this is the first time I’ve even seen it mentioned, and this book is just about old marriage rituals.” Hermione waved her hand at the book he had pushed aside. “I need to know - understand - what is happening before things get … harder for all of us.” She knew that he must know what she meant. He was in the Order and the Death Eaters. In many ways, she was sure that Professor Snape knew more than any of them. 

He brushed his fingers over the book and closed his eyes for just a breath longer than was normal. Hermione sat still as stone, waiting. He knew something. She knew he did. When he looked back at her, there was something blazing in his eyes, something human and pained, something she surely was never meant to see. “I don’t know much. Your endless need to know everything will not be satisfied.” 

“Anything,” she said. She needed something to go off of, something more than one sentence in a book older than Professor Dumbledore. 

“You will never tell another soul anything you know or guess about me after you leave this room,” he demanded. 

“Yes, Professor,” she agreed readily. That wouldn’t exactly be hard. Any connection between her and Malfoy would not be gladly accepted by her friends. They would be outraged, react wildly and do something utterly foolish to try and fix it. She needed to deal with this herself. 

“I’ve seen it before, just once. As far as I know, it’s the only other time in my lifetime that it has happened.” Snape waved his hand over a drawer she couldn’t see, but she heard it slide open. Snape reached down, pulling something from the drawer to hand to Hermione. She looked down, confused. It was Harry’s mother. 

“Lily Potter?” she asked, uneasily. 

“She hated him,” he said thickly. 

“You …” she said carefully, not wanting to make any assumptions that might derail him. 

“We were at school together,” he said, as if this explained everything, but there was really no need. You didn’t keep a photo of a woman who had been dead for over fifteen years because you went to school together, especially if you were a man like Severus Snape. Hermione looked at him again, trying to see past whatever had made him this man, this teacher who was often cruel to her and her friends and tried to imagine what he must have been like as a child. The woman in the photograph was beautiful, stunning really. It was difficult to imagine that she had once been friends or maybe something more with him. It was difficult to imagine him close to anyone in any capacity. “In times of trouble, magic has a way of working things out,” he said, ice dripping from his words. 

“James and Lily …”

“Maybe it would have happened anyway. I don’t know.” He took the picture back from her and locked it safely back inside of his desk. “We were just kids, and she hated him, and then this happened,” he motioned to Hermione, “and suddenly he was a better person, and she was in love with him.” He sneered, looking away from her. 

“Why … what does that have to do with magic?” she asked, trying to find some way to pull the conversation away from something that was obviously extremely personal to the man before her, something she wasn’t sure she wanted to know or understand. 

Snape laughed coldly. “We needed Harry Potter, didn’t we?” he asked her, and suddenly his unparalleled hatred for Harry, the reminder of what he had lost, possibly the very reason for it, made sense. But, what did that mean for her? 

“Are you saying …” She trailed off, unable to complete the thought, even in her mind. 

“I doubt we need another savior, Miss Granger. The one does such a wonderful job of it,” he drawled. 

“But, something. There has to be a reason, right?” she asked desperately. “If it’s about magic intervening?” 

“I believe so. What is happening to you is extremely unique. I wouldn’t even know about the Potters if I hadn’t lived through it. It is probably not something anyone alive is going to be able to help you understand.” 

“Is it this?” she asked, pointing at the book, her thought returning to the idea that her magic may somehow be bound to Malfoy. 

“I don’t know. My best guess is yes. Something about your magic is likely connected to his.” Snape drummed his fingers across the top of his desk. 

“Does he know?” She doubted it. She was sure he’d been unconscious the entire time she had been in the hospital, and Dumbledore had all but forbidden Professor Snape from approaching them. 

“Not to my knowledge,” he confirmed. 

“You care about him?” She was sure that he did. He wouldn’t have even considered telling them otherwise. Despite the brief glimpses she had just seen of his humanity, Professor Snape did not make a habit of doing things just because they seemed to be the right thing to do. 

“I think he is trying to protect his family, and it’s going to get him killed, or worse,” he said. Hermione didn’t want to think what ‘or worse’ could mean for Malfoy or his mother. They were not especially good or kind people in her opinion, but he was still just a boy, just as she was really just a girl. They were all so young, being forced to face choices and situations far beyond their capabilities and maturity. 

“And what am I supposed to do?” she asked. 

“I have no idea, Miss Granger,” he told her, but she didn’t need an answer. Now that she knew it was there, she could feel the answer in the beat of her blood as it pumped through her veins. 

Save him.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Shattered

After her conversation with Professor Snape, Hermione could hardly concentrate on anything. It was a peculiar sensation for her to battle with her mind to focus. She wanted to know more, to find answers, for he had been correct, and her curiosity was not assuaged by his meager knowledge of what had transpired between Lily and James. She felt a brief guilt over having this small bit of information about Harry’s parents and not sharing it with him, but she wasn’t ready to tell him everything, wasn’t sure if she would ever be ready, so she remained silent. 

She began to wonder who else may have known about their bond, who else might give her more pieces. She immediately was sure that Professor Lupin must have some knowledge. She had written him nearly a dozen letters and torn them up. He would help, if she wrote. If she reached out with needy hands and pulled the past from his mind, she would most likely hurt him in the process, but he was Remus J. Lupin, and he would help. He was a good man. As far as she was concerned, the best of the Marauders, and she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him. She would find a way if it became critical, if all other avenues failed her, but not yet. She couldn’t make herself send a letter yet. 

As the days passed, Hermione continued to pour herself wholeheartedly into research, grateful that she didn’t have O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s to prepare for because school was earning less and less of her time as her search for the Prince, anything that might help Harry in the coming Horcrux endeavour, and information about bonds consumed more and more of it. Her search for bonds and anything even remotely related to Horcruxes was futile. Owling Professor Lupin was looking better and better each day as she failed to locate even another off hand reference to bonds in any of the books she devoured with every spare moment of her time. Instead of focusing on Horcruxes, Hermione stashed away spells and knowledge that might be useful. 

The Prince search was feeling much the same, disappointing and unrewarding. She had never before found the Hogwarts library so utterly useless, and then everything changed. When she finally discovered Eileen Prince in the old section of Prophets in the library, she was buzzing with excitement. This had to be it. There was no possible way that Harry could deny what she had found, but that thought couldn’t have been further from the truth. 

When she slammed that yellowing photo of Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team, down on the table in front of him, he took the news with all the class of a flobberworm, claiming that the Prince couldn’t possibly be a woman. Apparently he ‘could just tell,’ whatever in the world that meant. Hermione, however, just knew she was on the right path. It was too much of a coincidence for the two things not to be related. For being her best friend, Harry really was very good at irritating her lately, especially about this book. There was something wrong with it, and it was not just that it was helping him to cheat in Potions. What kind of person wrote down dangerous spells like that in books? Anyone could find them and use it, just like Harry had. It sent shivers down her spine just to think about Malfoy and how blanched his skin had been that night in the hospital. He was a prat to be sure, but she didn’t want him dead. She certainly didn’t want Harry responsible for something like that. 

After she had informed Harry that she was going to continue her search in the old Potions records, Hermione stormed out of the tower and away from Harry. As she walked toward the library, her mind racing with thoughts of that book, Sectumsempra, Malfoy, and their link. She had been trying to think of some way to approach him, but it seemed impossible. He hated her. Everyone knew that. If magic wanted someone to save him, it certainly had a funny process for selection. If she approached him, she was more likely to cause him to do something rash and stupid that would get them both in detention. She wasn’t sure what she could ever say or do to convince him to listen to her. Harry’s last interaction with him had nearly caused the Slytherin to cast an Unforgivable Curse. 

She shuddered again, crossing her arms as she walked through the library entrance. Once inside, Hermione stumbled suddenly, her heart racing in a sudden rush of unexplained joy. She wasn’t happy. She was annoyed, extremely put out actually. She closed her eyes, a queasy sensation of dread sliding into her stomach as the euphoria in her heart pounded happily away in her chest. It was utterly disconcerting to feel so happy and so filled with foreboding at the same time. There was only one reason she could think of to feel so happy for no reason at all. It must have something to do with Malfoy. Somewhere in this castle, he was celebrating something, and the emotion was incredibly strong. It overwhelmed her senses. 

“Miss Granger?” 

Hermione blinked, looking up to see Professor Sprout standing before her holding a book. “Are you okay, dear?” 

Hermione put a hand to her chest. “I’m fine,” she breathed, but she wobbled as she took a step forward. 

“Let me help you,” the woman said as she took Hermione’s hand in hers and placed another on her back. Together, they walked slowly to a nearby table, and Hermione sat down. 

“Do you need Madam Pomfrey?” Professor Sprout asked, and Hermione shook her head. 

“No,” she said, forcing her voice to even. She considered asking for Professor Snape, but knew he had given her all the information he could. 

Professor Sprout stared at her uneasily and then called over a young boy Hermione didn’t know, instructing him to go get the nurse. Hermione was feeling out of breath, and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest, so she was unable to protest. Over the seemingly long wait for the Hogwarts nurse, the unusual sensation of feeling two emotions at once gave way to her own sickening fear, and she was able to convince the Professor that she was fine, but Sprout demanded she wait for Madame Pomfrey. 

The mediwitch waved her wand over Hermione as soon as she arrived, concern lining the creases of her face. “Have you been feeling faint since your incident?” she asked finally, and Hermione shook her head. 

“I’ve been fine. I feel fine now.” 

“I’d like to take you back to the Hospital Wing. Perhaps let you rest there …” 

“That isn’t necessary. I’ll go to bed now. I can rest in bed. I promise,” she told her, but the mediwitch waved her wand over her head again, frowning. 

“I suppose if you let someone walk you back to the common room. You seem completely normal again.” The nurse looked frustrated, as if she wanted something to be wrong that she could fix. 

“Yes, of course,” she said. 

“I want you to come see me tomorrow. I’d like to check a couple things.” From anyone else, this would be a suggestion, or a question, but Hermione knew it was nothing close to optional. 

“Yes, I will,” Hermione agreed, unsure if her bond with Draco was something the nurse could detect with her spells. Somehow, she doubted it. If it was that easy, there would likely be some mention of the phenomenon in medical books, whereas the reality was that there were none. 

After a few more minutes, Hermione was able to convince the nurse to let her walk back to the portrait hole, though Madame Pomfrey insisted on accompanying her. She was only slightly disappointed to be leaving instead of going through old Potions awards. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to accomplish anything now. The dread she was feeling about what could possibly make Draco Malfoy that happy when he seemed little more than a ghost these days was terrifying. 

Her walk back to Gryffindor tower took much longer than the path down to the library. Madame Pomfrey kept her pace slow and occasionally asked Hermione odd questions like what she had eaten for breakfast and how many hours of sleep she was getting. Hermione tried to pay attention and answer the questions satisfactorily, but she was struggling to focus. She was positive that she needed to find a way to get to Draco, to make him understand whatever it was that she was supposed to make him understand, but she was worried that it was too late now. When they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, the older woman looked at her one last time as if she would rather not leave her, reminded her to go straight to bed, and turned back down the path they had just taken. 

When she arrived in the common room, Ron still sat at the table. He stared disparagingly down at a book.

“What are you doing?” she asked, shocked by the sight and wondering where Harry had gone. 

“I’m still behind on Potions. Harry went off to see Dumbledore,” he said. She could hear the nervous tremble behind his words. 

“Is this it?” she asked, glancing around to make sure no one was too close as she fell into the chair across from him, which had been occupied by Harry the last time she had been in the common room. 

“I don’t know. Why are you back so soon?” he asked, apparently realizing she had gone to the library for a far shorter time than was normal. 

“I wasn’t feeling well,” she told him, as she glanced at the portrait hole. She knew Harry could likely be a while, but she couldn’t help but look for him anyway. 

“Are you okay?” Ron looked uneasily at her, and she nodded in return to reassure him. Her stomach flipped in spite of this. Something was up with Malfoy, and Harry had been summoned by Dumbledore. It didn’t feel right. She briefly considered telling Ron everything just to have a friend who knew what she was truly dealing with, but knew it would be a terrible idea. He would overreact the moment she muttered Malfoy’s name or think she had gone nutters like Harry and both of his best friends were now obsessed with the blond Slytherin. 

Instead, she pulled a book from her bag and opened it front of her to stop the conversation. Ron seemed to understand that this meant she didn’t want to talk. Several chapter later, she looked up at a noise to see Harry walking towards their small table. “What does he want?” He looked pale and determined. “Harry, are you okay?” she added, anxiously. 

“I’m fine,” Harry said, shortly, and she stared after him as he raced up the stairs, presumably to his dormitory. She glanced back at Ron, and he shrugged, but she could tell he was nervous. Moments later, Harry was back, breathing hard. 

“I’ve got to be quick,” he panted. “Dumbledore thinks I’m getting my Invisibility Cloak. Listen …” Hermione did listen as he rattled through his run in with Professor Trelawney. Her heart constricted and her mouth was suddenly dry when Harry said that he was sure Malfoy had been whooping inside of the Room of Requirement. “So you see what this means?” he asked finally, and Hermione didn’t want to believe it, but part of her was beginning to think that Harry could have been right, that all this time, all his obsessing may have been on the nose. Something terrible was in the air, and Malfoy was happy, whooping even. “Dumbledore won’t be here tonight, so Malfoy’s going to have another clear shot at whatever he’s up to. No, listen to me!” he hissed. Ron and Hermione had both opened their mouths to interject, but he cut them off. “I know it was Malfoy celebrating in the Room of Requirement. Here.” Harry handed her the Marauder’s Map as she stared back, incredulous. “You’ve got to watch him, and you’ve got to watch Snape too. Use anyone else who you can rustle up from the D.A., Hermione those contact Galleons will still work, right? Dumbledore says he’s put extra protection in the school, but if Snape’s involved, he’ll know what Dumbledore’s protection is, and how to avoid it — but he won’t be expecting you lot to be on the watch will he?” 

“Harry —” Hermione started, afraid of what this all meant. 

“I haven’t got time to argue,” Harry told her, misunderstanding everything, of course. “Take this as well.” He pushed socks into Ron’s hands. 

“Thanks,” Ron said. “Er, why do I need socks?” 

“You need whats wrapped in them, it’s the Felix Felicis. Share it between yourselves and Ginny too. Say good-bye to her for me. I’d better go, Dumbledore is waiting for me —” 

“No!” Hermione said urgently. She couldn’t let him leave, let him go against whatever horrible thing he was about to do without the Felix. “We don’t want it, you take it, who knows what you will be facing?” 

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be with Dumbledore,” he assured her. “I want to know you lot are okay … Don’t look like that, Hermione, I’ll see you later.” 

And, then he was gone, and she was staring down at her hands as Ron did the same. They looked up at the same moment, and their eyes locked. She thought she ought to say something, but her mouth was still dry, and her heart was pounding again. 

“I’ll go get my coin,” she told him. 

Near midnight, she was standing outside Snape’s office next to Luna. They had been waiting forever it seemed like, and nothing was happening. She was itching for some news, for something to happen or to know it was not going to happen. Beside her, Luna was chattering away as if nothing was amiss, driving Hermione up the wall with her talk of creatures that certainly did not exist. The only thing that likely kept her sane was the constant stream of terrified wonderings flashing through her mind about what Malfoy was doing and whether her friends were all okay. 

When she saw Professor Flitwick running down the hall, Hermione nearly lost her footing. Her knees were suddenly weak and felt ready to buckle. “Death Eaters in the castle!” he shouted as he passed them to barge into Snape’s office. Cold, slick fear crawled down Hermione’s back. There were Death Eaters in Hogwarts. It was impossible. Surely. It must be. “You have to come back and help Severus!” Then there was a large thumping noise before Snape barreled out of the office door. He seemed to register their presence at once. His eyes flitted between the two of them before he spoke. 

“Miss Lovegood, go and help the Professor. He’s fainted,” Snape demanded. Hermione moved to follow Luna, but Professor Snape stepped into her way. A flash of red light shot from his wand, hitting the blonde girl in the back. She crumpled to the ground with a second thud. 

Hermione began to scream as she stared at Luna unconscious on the floor, but Snape’s wand flicked in her direction and the sound cut off immediately. She gripped at her neck as she raised her own wand with her other hand. Terror shivered from her spine to encompass her entire body rapidly. Every nerve ending was on fire, screaming at her to fight while her brain ran, arguing with her instincts, trying for logic. What was he doing? This wasn’t right. He was a teacher. She thought she understood him. He had told her about Lily Potter. He had let her in, let her see more than the facade. 

“Listen to me, Miss Granger. Listen very carefully,” he said. His voice was low but clear. Hermione held her wand steady despite the knowledge that she was no match for the wizard before her. He could kill her in an instant. They both knew it. “Something terrible is going to happen tonight, and it will change everything, but you must still find a way to help him.” Hermione felt her mouth fall open. Malfoy. He was talking to her about Malfoy. At a time like this? There were Death Eaters in the castle. He had attacked Luna right in front of her and likely Flitwick as well. “You must still figure out why you are bound to him. Trust no one but Potter and Weasley. No one. Not even me, and we may still succeed.” 

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, to demand more of an explanation, but she couldn’t speak. 

“No,” he said, and then his hand was clenching her outstretched wrist so tightly she cried out silently. “Save him,” he demanded urgently. His black eyes bore into hers, and she saw a pain so great inside of them that it shattered something inside of her, and then he was running. 

“Go help them,” he shouted. “Stay out of this.” Hermione watched him go, confusion and concern fighting inside of her mind. Something terrible was happening. She let her eyes close for one single moment as she prayed that her friends were okay, that Harry was okay, and Ron, and Ginny, and Neville, and everyone. Then she opened her eyes to the empty hall, and forced herself to turn and kneel down next to Luna, her wand ready to wake the girl.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Harmonia Nectere Passus

He was running out of time. There were very few certain things in Draco Malfoy’s life any more, but this was one of them. The Dark Lord had given him a task, and he was failing. He had been unraveling for ages now, or so it felt like. When Potter had discovered him in the bathroom, hit him with that spell, he had expected to be afraid, to not want to die, but he hadn’t. He had been cold and calm. A nearly unsettling sensation of peace had rolled through him, making him feel for the first time in a long time that everything would be okay. At least it would be Potter. The Dark Lord wouldn’t be nearly so kind as to slice him open and let him bleed to death on the stone floor of the bathroom. 

But he woke up.

It took him days to accept that reality. He didn’t want to do this anymore. He didn’t care if Dumbledore lived or died. Even more important, he didn’t care if Lord Voldemort lived or died, and now, apparently, he was becoming partial to the dead end of the spectrum for himself. The only person who truly mattered, who had ever mattered, was his mother. She loved him. His death would devastate her, another misery for her to endure behind her porcelain facade. His father’s failure, her sister’s madness, her other sister’s betrayal, each disappointment weighed her down, but he seemed to be the only person capable of seeing this in her eyes.

Meanwhile, his father had become a shell of the man he once was. Azkaban would do that to anyone, but Lucius Malfoy was not just anyone. He was a man accustomed to a certain way of life. Draco had tried everything he could to help, to show his father that he could be strong for both of them, that he could bring honor back to their family, but now he was failing. He hadn’t been able to fix the cabinet. 

He had the incantation. 

Harmonia Nectere Passus

The words were second nature now. They lingered on his tongue like the film of spoiled food, waiting for him to whisper them again and again in a pointless continuation, each time spiraling him closer and closer to utter failure, to his murder. For he was all too aware that his death was waiting, moving day by day through the sands of time. Until that moment of realization on the cold bathroom floor, he had thought that death was what bothered him, but it turned out to be his mother. If Potter killed him, he could save her the pain of watching it at least. Despite his confidence that this was the future waiting for him, he continued to linger in front of the cabinet, muttering, shouting, screaming, sobbing the words over and over again. 

Harmonia Nectere Passus

The empty eyes of victims.

Harmonia Nectere Passus

Blood mixing with water. 

Harmonia Nectere Passus

Fear in the squeeze of his mother’s hand. 

Harmonia Nectere Passus

His father’s confidence lost. 

Harmonia Nectere Passus

And, then, in the dimness of dusk, it worked, and his heart stalled, stuck between two beats for the longest moment of his life as the cabinet glimmered. Hogwarts had always been a place that he had looked down upon, casting it in derision and spite. Now, though, now in this moment, he felt part of his very being cry out in opposition. Hogwarts is your home, something whispered, but he pushed it down, choosing instead to focus on his mother, on her discovering his success, of her not having to watch his murder, at least not for this. Something bubbled and then boiled within him, breaking free from somewhere deep within, somewhere he was still able to feel joy, and he was shouting and jumping, whooping in utter bliss at the first thing he had cause to celebrate in such a very, very long time. 

“Who’s there?” someone called, and the moment was ruined in a rush of panicked chaos. He lifted his wand again, casting and calling on the room to help him be rid of the intruder, who he wasn’t sure he could identify before the room went black and wind pushed her out the door, but he thought it might be that old insane bat, Trelawney. Once she was gone, he fell to the ground, his knees hitting hard as his legs gave out. The euphoria was equally matched with terror for what was to come. He turned to see the cabinet glimmer once again.

Draco allowed his body time to stop trembling before he rose, moving back to open the cabinet door. Inside a small parchment lie with a single word scrawled upon it’s surface. 

Tonight. 

XXX

“Run, Draco!” Snape’s screaming was unnecessary. He was already running as fast as he could, trying not to think, though that was impossible. Dumbledore was dead. Really, truly dead. Draco had nearly thought him unkillable. Granted, he hadn’t been trying overly hard to do the job, his attempts half cocked at best, but he was Albus Dumbledore, and he was dead. 

Dead. 

And Snape had killed him. 

Severus Snape was loyal to the Dark Lord after all. All of Aunt Bella’s warnings as useless as the grass beneath Draco’s feet as he ran, pumping his arms as quickly as possible as his legs screamed in response, but he had to run. Potter was out for blood, and Azkaban was not a place Draco longed to learn about from the inside. He had seen the results of a stay in those walls in far too many people. That would be a worse fate than death. 

And, so, he ran, Dumbledore’s face flashing behind his eyes, his offer ringing in his ears. Protection for him and his mother. All he wanted. All that mattered. It had intrigued him, made him hope for just an instant that maybe they would be okay, that they could stop playing their part in this deadliest of games, but then Snape had done what he could not, and Dumbledore, and his offer, were both dead, flung from the tower with cruel finality. 

I can help you, Draco. 

Nobody can. Nobody can. Nobody ever will.

He was alone. Just him. He needed to find a way to save her, protect her, to keep her from falling victim in this war, a pawn to be used against Draco and Lucius. She was disposable, and now he would be also. He hadn’t succeeded. Snape had killed Dumbledore. Surely that would be seen as a failure on his part, a weakness. The Dark Lord did not tolerate weakness, and yet he ran, reaching the border of the grounds and spinning back to see Snape screaming something at Potter before a white light flew from his wand with a slash. Potter fell backward, and a fucking hippogriff of all things launched itself at Snape, claws extended. The others were disappearing beside him, but Draco remained, watching Snape as he resumed running, staring back at him. Draco was stone, immovable as he watched the creature screech and race behind the Potions Master who seemed filled with a fiery rage, his hand extended. 

“What are you doing, idiot boy?” he snarled, and then they were spinning, leaving Hogwarts behind. 

They landed in a dirty room with an empty bed frame and the smell of mildew lingering in the air. “Listen,” Snape snapped, and Draco moved his eyes back to the man, who still looked terrifying. “You follow my lead. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t speak unless he asks you a direct question. Focus on closing your mind —” 

“I don’t have anything to hide.” 

“Yes, you do. I don’t have time to explain. Just do it, or you and your mother will both be dead before the end of the night. Do you understand me?” 

“Are you threatening me?” Draco asked, anger flooding him. What was going on? 

“No. I’m telling you what he will do to you if you let him in, if you let him see that you are hiding something from him. We’re already taking too long. Do you understand what I’m telling you to do?” 

“I’m not hid —” Suddenly a slap struck him across the face, ringing his ears as he reached up to touch his cheek. 

“Draco, I’m trying to save your life! Don’t let him see anything before tonight. Do you understand? Don’t let him in.” 

“Yes,” Draco replied, still stunned at the violent action. 

“Let’s go,” Snape waved his wand once, and Draco’s face lost the burning ache caused by the slap. His arm was crushed in the same moment and they were sliding again, shifting, moving through the familiar feeling of Malfoy Manor’s wards, his blood allowing them safe passage. 

They landed in the parlor, and he was engulfed in his mother’s arms immediately. “I’m not a child,” he drawled, shoving her back, even though he longed for nothing more than to hold her back, let his head rest against her shoulder. It was all part of the act. She was a worried woman, treating him like her little boy, and he could not be seen that way by the rest of the Death Eaters, or the chilling man standing at the head of the room. 

“Draco,” his voice filled air, alighting it with sinister electricity. “I hear you needed Severus to complete your task.” 

Draco swallowed, focusing his attentions on keeping his face impassive, his memories of everything but the evening shielded. He pulled his hesitations, his hope of getting away behind the shield as well. He layered the shield with nonsense, the feel of Pansy’s head in his lap, the way he felt on a broom, his last Charms lesson, anything to keep the Dark Lord from realizing that he was hiding something, though it was difficult to hide something when you had no idea what it was that you were hiding. 

“It was my pleasure,” Snape told Lord Voldemort, his lips slightly curved at the edges, his smile sickening.

“I wish to see, Severus.” The Dark Lord turned his gaze on Snape, and the man looked back, his expression unchanging. The grin that slid across the pale face of their lord was horrifying and familiar. 

“Albus Dumbledore is dead,” he said, nearly singing as he turned back to Draco. “We could not have done this without you, Draco, but you still failed me, still did not follow my orders.” 

He stepped closer, lifting his wand as he moved. Draco let his eyes flicker to his mother for a single instant. The horror in her eyes screamed back at him. Her fingertips twitched. He looked back at the moving figure, his robes billowing as he took step after step, his wand arm fully extended. 

“You must be punished, Draco,” Voldemort told him, and his arm flicked to the side as Narcissa crumpled to the ground, screaming in agony. Draco stood still as stone, unable to move, held in place by someone else’s magic. He tried to go to her, to hold her as the Dark Lord cursed her, but was unable to move more than his eyes.

An eternity passed as he listened to his mother wailing, watched her scratching at her face and neck until she drew blood, and then it stopped, and the Dark Lord stepped closer. 

“Next time, you will not fail me,” he whispered, and then he turned to leave, moving out of the door without sparing the unconscious woman a single glance. 

As Snape began to move, Draco was freed from his bonds. He fell to his knees, feeling his mother’s burning forehead and looking up at the Professor with hollow eyes. “Will she be okay?” he asked, his voice unrecognizable even to himself. 

“I don’t know. Get her to bed. I will get some potions. Speak to no one.” Draco wanted to shout at him, to tell him that this was all his fault, that he had nearly killed his mother, but he couldn’t. Snape had done nothing but fulfill the promise he had made to Narcissa months ago. Draco had failed to kill Dumbledore, knowing that it would put her at risk, and Snape had stepped in to complete the job. 

XXX

His mother’s breath was coming in shallow movements as she lay unmoving, still unconscious in the bed. As Draco held her clammy hand, he thought of his father. He didn’t miss him. He thought his mother might like him to be here, but in Draco’s eyes, his father was just as, if not more, responsible for this as Draco. 

Draco had sat on a hard, uncomfortable chair beside her, waiting. It seemed that this day would never end. It had begun a lifetime ago at Hogwarts. He had woken with nearly no hope that he would ever get the incantation to work, and now he was home. Dumbledore was dead, Snape was being even more cryptic than usual, Draco was apparently hiding something from the Dark Lord, and his mother was suffering for the actions of the two people she had made the mistake of loving more than anyone else.

Snape returned in a fury, his robes flying around him, still dirty from fleeing the castle and torn and bloody from the Hippogriff’s claws. In his hands, he held a bag. He was already pulling a vial from it. Draco stood, pushing the chair back as he moved, watching Snape carefully as the man set the bag beside his still mother. Snape reached a hand behind his mother’s head, his fingers lacing through her hair with more care than Draco would have expected, and then he pulled her head up. He unstoppered the purple liquid with his thumb, and brought it to her lips, watching carefully as he spilled several drops on her lips. He handled the vial to Draco then and reached back into his bag for a small leaf. He rubbed it between his fingers and then ran his thumb over her lips. She stirred, her eyes fluttering as she grimaced. 

“Take this,” Snape demanded, now holding a pink potion to her mouth. Draco was amazed at how quickly he worked. Narcissa obeyed, sipping the liquid slowly until the vial was empty, and Snape finally let her fall back to the pillow. Her eyes flickered, looking at Draco, and then fell shut as her labored breathing steadied. “You shouldn’t have looked at her,” Snape said quietly. 

“I was worried about her watching,” Draco replied, knowing the other man was right. 

“You gave him a worse punishment instead,” Snape explained. 

“Are you going to explain —” 

“No. I’m not. You need to stay out of the way for awhile. Stay with your mother. Take care of her.” His voice was still controlled as he replaced the vials in his bag, placing them on the small table beside Narcissa’s bed. “I’ll be back to give her more tomorrow.” 

“I’m not a nurse,” Draco snapped. 

“No. You’re a child, and if you fail again, he will kill her,” Snape growled. 

Draco’s eyes fell to his mother’s face, the indentations of her fingernails standing out in stark contrast to her creamy skin. “Okay,” he agreed. 

“I’ll keep him distracted from you. Just stay out of his sight. Try to avoid your father also. He isn’t right. Ever since he lost his wand.” Snape shook his head, and Draco wished that he could understand what was going on behind those dark eyes, even if just for a moment. Draco was beginning to realize that Severus Snape seemed to know more than any one person ever realized. 

“I know,” Draco mumbled, remembering the despair that followed his father wherever he went. 

“He only asked you to do this because Lucius failed him. He never expected you to succeed. The horrible part is that you pleased him.” Snape looked down at Narcissa, disgust in the lines of his face. Draco laughed, a terrible laughter that threatened to burn his eyes and turn to tears, but he refused to cry. He wouldn’t cry again. His mother needed him. Snape ignored the laughter, seeming to understand the root of it. Instead, he continued to give instructions, as if this was entirely normal. “If she gets worse, give her a few more drops of the purple one, no more than three. I will be back as soon as I can.” 

“Okay,” Draco said again, returning to his previous position on the chair, his hand gripping hers once again. He didn’t look up, but he heard Snape move back across the room, the door opening and closing as he left. Draco couldn’t stop staring at the deep incisions Narcissa had made in her own skin as she screamed. He could hear her screaming even now as she lay unmoving before him, the wails bouncing around his head with endless persistence.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Secrets

His mother slept restlessly throughout the night. Draco sat beside her, unable to move from her side for fear she may need him. Several times, she stirred, muttering a few incoherent words before she settled again. He ran his fingers across her forehead multiple times, feeling the feverish heat against the pads of his fingers. Her blonde hair become sticky with sweat as time went on, and he grew more and more anxious. 

He glanced toward the door every few minutes with desperate eyes as he waited for the Potions Master to return. He had no idea what Snape was doing now, but Draco had no choice but to trust him. Saving and healing his mother was beyond his abilities, and no one else seemed to be lining up to offer to help her. 

Finally, when soft light had been flickering in through the curtains for several hours, Snape returned. It was clear from his red eyes that he had not yet slept either, but he seemed to have changed his clothes at least. 

“How is she?” he asked, moving to Narcissa’s bedside. He immediately set to work, pulling out more potions under Draco’s careful gaze. 

“She seems the same,” Draco muttered. His dry throat protested the effort needed to form words. 

“Have you slept?” the older man asked as his fingers moved behind Narcissa’s neck to tilt her head forward. Draco scoffed in reply as he watched Snape pour a small amount of liquid into his mother’s mouth. It frustrated him that he had no idea what the man was giving her. “You need to take care of yourself also. Go clean up.” Snape waved his hand dismissively. 

Draco did not move. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Snape stopped his work to glare. “Do you think the first thing your mother wants to see when she wakes is her son covered in dirt and blood, his clothes tattered?” Draco looked down at his clothing, confirming that he appeared exactly as described. “I’ll stay until you return,” Snape promised, his tone slightly less pointed. Draco hesitated for another moment, but he knew Snape was right in the end. Seeing him like this would only distress Narcissa if — when — she woke for good. He sighed as he conceded, leaving the room with a final glance at her face. 

The halls of Malfoy Manor were silent. It had always been a quiet place, but where the stillness had once been comforting and familiar, matching the regal setting of the home, it was now suffocating and put him on edge. Nothing was the same. From the moment his father had returned to the Dark Lord, their lives had been on edge. In the beginning, Draco hadn’t realized how severely things would change. The glory that waited for him and his family in the future his father spoke of had entranced him, allowing him to imagine a world where people like him were truly honored and recognized as they deserved to be. The first time he had met the Dark Lord, the man, if he could be called a man, had been just as attractive as his father, not in appearance perhaps, but his words were honey, drawing in Draco’s youth with ease. 

That pretense of silky words and smooth promises had all ended the night he returned from his sixth year at Hogwarts. He had known things would be bad. He had read the papers the same as everyone else and endured the taunts from other Purebloods and Muggle lovers alike. He just didn’t realize how bad they would be. His mother had been white as a sheet when he saw her, her normally beautiful pale skin appearing sick with stress. She pushed away any attempt he made to talk to her about any of it, ushering him quickly home instead, insisting he must be tired, and sending dinner up to his room without another word.

He had barely managed to fall asleep, or so it felt, before his aunt’s face was hovering above him. He jumped up, and she cackled in the way mad people do, and he felt the first tremor that indicated something truly terrible was happening. That tremor had been spot on. Within the hour he was a shadow of his former self, nearly unconscious on the floor of his mother’s bedroom, the pain of being marked still shaking through his body, the Dark Lord and his aunt gone from the house. 

He was still proud to serve. He put on a brave face. He assured his mother that he would lead their family to the glory he had once dreamed of his father claiming, but inside his mind was racing, terror at the prospect of what the Dark Lord would ask of him taking root in his soul. It would not be easy, whatever he wanted. This was an undeniable fact. As charming as his father’s master was, it was clear, even to Draco, that his vengeance was anything but. His mother sobbed that night. It was something he had never witnessed before. Never had she cried a single tear from joy or pain in his presence. His mother was a Black and a Malfoy. She was iron, unbreakable, yet this had broken her. The mark, which he had gladly taken to spare their lives, broke her. 

When the order to kill Dumbledore had finally come, Draco had kept his face blank, nodded his head once, and left the room when dismissed. His mother had been hysterical, but only after they were home alone. She knew the danger that lay in denying Lord Voldemort, perhaps better than most. Draco had snapped, yelling at her, insisting that he wasn’t a child, and she needed to stop treating him like one. He was the man of the family with Lucius in Azkaban. He would make the decisions about what was best for the Malfoy name. 

They had argued for hours, and then she had vanished. When she returned home, late into the night, she seemed calmer, but still unsure. She never spoke another word against his mark or his role in the Death Eaters. He had thought she didn’t believe in him, that she thought him weak and doomed to fail. It had only been as the year wore on and failure seemed imminent that Draco had realized she was even more scared than he was. She would be alone if he failed, for he would surely be dead and Lucius left to rot.

And now? 

His mother lay in bed, and he was still a Death Eater, though his role seemed to have been played for now. Snape was trying to keep him out of the way, but how long could that truly last? He was supposed to be Lucius’ punishment and torturing Narcissa in exchange for both of their failures was hardly what the Dark Lord would consider an eye for an eye. What would the next impossible task be? Kill Potter himself? Fat chance of that. That idiot seemed to defy the very laws of magic and survival. 

As Draco entered his room, he took in the familiar setting, hoping that here at least, it would feel the same. He was disappointed. This room was tainted with the same sense of infection that touched the rest of the house. He breathed in deeply as he shut the door and wished he could fall back against it and ignore the world outside. This was impossible. He was in far too deep now. He had a path to follow, and right now, he needed to be with his mother. 

He crossed the stone floor to his bathroom. He stripped his clothes as he avoided the mirror, not interested in seeing the dark circles that haunted his eyes or the unnatural pallor that had claimed his own skin lately. He didn’t need the reminder of who he had become. As he stepped into the shower, the water scalded him, but he didn’t care. He rubbed his skin, cleaning away the dirt as he tried not to think about what was coming. This was an impossible task, something he couldn’t possibly do. The future seemed dark. His life seemed to have been given by his own hands into the hands of a man who cared little for him or his parents. He allowed himself to dwell for a single moment on his desperate wish that he had never taken the mark. His mother would have been better off even if he had died that night instead. All he had achieved in his quest for glory was hurting her. Once he was done washing, Draco allowed himself a few brief moments of letting the water run freely down his body before he stepped out to dress. 

The path back to his mother’s room seemed longer than the way to his own room. He was starting to worry that something could have happened to her. This fear was immediately calmed when he walked into her room to find Professor Snape sitting beside her bed, his hands resting on the sides of the chair. His mother seemed fine, possibly even better. “She’s responding well,” Snape said before his eyes even met Draco’s. “She should wake sometime today. I gave her something to ensure she sleeps a few more hours at least. She needs the rest. Don’t let her get out of bed.” 

“I won’t,” Draco assured him as he shut the door behind him. A small amount of the pressure on his chest had been removed at the words. She would wake up. “What about the stuff yesterday?” he asked. 

Snape shook his head. “That isn’t important.” 

“If it isn’t important you wouldn’t have told me to hide my thoughts,” Draco argued, knowing that there must be something inside of him that was putting him in danger. Anything that put him in danger with the Dark Lord was also putting his mother in danger. It was unsettling to have Snape seem to know something about himself that no one else did. 

“I don’t even know if he would have realized. It’s safer if you don’t know.” Snape pushed up from the chair and started to gather his things quickly. 

“Safer? What if I show him the wrong thing?” Draco snapped. 

“You won’t because you will stay here with your mother and out of the way,” Snape informed him. 

“Yeah, I’m sure the Dark Lord is going to be fine with my hiding with Mummy.” Draco shook his head, the ridiculous words would have made him laugh if they weren’t so terrifying. 

“I will distract him from you. Just keep your head down and listen for once. The Dark Lord is pushing forward with taking over the Ministry. You don’t want to be involved in that,” Snape glanced down at Narcissa. “I’ll tell him you will just get in the way. You don’t know enough magic to be of any real help.” 

“I’m not an idiot.” 

“Do you want to become a murderer?” Snape snapped. “Did I …” Snape stopped, turning his face to the side as he collected himself and then looked back. “If you get involved with the Ministry take over you will be forced to kill. There is no doubt in my mind.” 

“I …” Draco remembered the tower, the drop of his wand arm, Dumbledore’s offer. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t, unless he had to. For some reason, Snape was trying to keep him from having to. 

“He wants Potter dead,” Snape added. “Would you like to be involved in a full on fight with the Order?” Draco stared down at his mother. No. He didn’t. Not if he could help it. 

“Why is he so obsessed with Potter?” Draco demanded. What did Potter matter in all of this? He couldn’t really be what they all said. He was basically useless.

“It will be better for all of us if you just stop asking questions,” Snape assured him. His footsteps moved towards the door. “Just … take care of your mother and let me deal with the rest of it.” 

“Why are you doing this?” Draco asked, not able to look the other man in the face. 

“I owe your mother a great deal,” Snape said quietly. 

“She would want me to know what I’m supposed to be hiding,” Draco told him, trying a new tactic, even though he was sure that Snape would tell him nothing. 

“If your mother knew what I know, she would tell you to listen to me,” Snape assured him tightly. Behind Draco’s back, the door opened and shut softly. Draco fell into the chair, his hands moving of their own accord to cradle his head. His life was so fucked up. His mother unconscious. His father in prison. His school teacher the only barrier between him and a madman that wanted to use him as a pawn to punish his father. He wanted to think that there could be a good end to this, that they could still find the glory he had once sipped from his father’s hands, that they could live their lives the way his father once promised, but all of that was lost now.

His family was broken, the Malfoy name destroyed. It meant nearly nothing to be a Malfoy now. The Wizarding World knew what his father was and hated him. The Death Eaters had probably enjoyed watching their fall. He had no friends left, no one to trust or rely upon. Crabbe and Goyle were never friends, they were convenient when he needed to use them but not trustworthy. 

Snape was always twisting things, playing some game Draco didn’t quite understand. It was as if some of the pieces were just out of sight. His Aunt Bella thought she knew what they were, but Draco wasn’t so sure, especially after tonight. Why would Snape murder Dumbledore if he was serving the Order? It made no sense. Potter had been ready to murder Snape. The act was genuine, but something about the game kept Draco leery to put too much store in the man. He was trying to keep Draco safe, to protect him, but why? What was it about the past that made him owe Narcissa Malfoy anything? His mother had never whispered a word to him that would lead him to believe this. 

Secrets. He was sick of them. Everyone was wrapped in secrets, telling lies to keep their secrets safe, but secrets were like poison. They worked their way slowly through you, killing you when you least expected it. His own secrets had landed him here in this chair, a failure. 

Draco rubbed at his face, exhaustion beginning to pull at his eyelids. He tried to imagine his mother young and beautiful, her life before his father had pulled them into this world. He wondered what her laughter had sounded like then, before all of it. He tried to imagine, to hear it inside of his head as he drifted off to sleep, her hand in his.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Pain

Hermione’s life after Dumbledore’s death became about predicting every moment before it occurred. She knew that Harry would insist on searching for the Horcruxes, so she committed to doing whatever it took to help him. She and Ron knew and accepted that they would not be returning to Hogwarts in the fall. Life held a very different path for them now. To say that losing her chance to be Head Girl was painful would be an extreme understatement, but she spoke of it to no one. She worried Ron would possibly just make her feel worse with a mistaken wrong word, Harry would internalize her pain and add it to his ever increasing list of things to feel guilty for that weren’t his fault, and no one else could be told that she wasn’t going back.

So, she took that pain and used it to get through the hardest weeks of her life. She prepared the bag that she would take the Burrow first, checking, double checking, and triple checking each item inside. Counting and grouping by type became her obsession. She snuck away to Diagon Alley and the shops without her parents knowing, using money her grandmother had left her when she died to purchase necessities and things they might need. When she was not locked in her room, she spent every moment possible with her parents, though even these hours were haunted by the contents of her bag and the significance of what they meant she must do. 

She stalled for three days. She had done everything she could to prepare, looked through the bag until she was sick of it, checked the incantation a thousand times, and she knew that she needed to leave, but it was impossibly hard. She tried the first night. They ate dinner together, and her parents went outside to sit in the garden as they often did in the evenings. Hermione stood in the window behind them, the bag in one hand, her wand extended, but she couldn’t do it. The sound of their laughter drifting in with the breeze brought tears to her eyes and a lump to her throat. She retreated, hiding inside her room to count again, to convince her nerve again that this was what she must do.

For two more days, she lived as normal, not letting them suspect a thing, ignoring opportunities to do what must be done. On the third day, there was a murder in the Prophet, and she could delay no longer. She waited until they went to sleep, hugged them both tightly, telling them how much she loved them. They gave her odd looks and kissed her cheek but didn’t press her. Once she was sure they were asleep, she took quiet steps down the hall to push their door open. Tears blurred her vision as she sobbed, her arm shaking so violently she wasn’t sure the spell would work, but it did. It hit them one after the other, and she fled. 

Mrs. Weasley greeted her with pancakes and a hug several hours later, and she fumbled through the morning long enough to get alone in Ginny’s room where she fell apart, crumpling to the floor. Ron had come in at some point. She didn’t remember when it happened, but he awkwardly wrapped his arms around her and held her while she cried and then while she shook when her tears were gone and dried. 

After that, she never mentioned it again, and Ron seemed to understand. No one else had any reason to suspect that something was the matter, so life continued. The night before they were going to get Harry, Tonks and Lupin joined them at the Burrow for dinner. Hermione had been waiting for this opportunity since her conversation with Professor Snape about the Potters. She knew that she needed to get her former Professor away from everyone else, she just wasn’t sure how to do it. 

Tonks sat beside her at dinner, and she seemed to still be glowing from the joy of her wedding to Lupin. Knowing Tonks though, the glow could be real and not just a trick of the light mixed with her joy. After dinner, Molly wrangled Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and the twins into cleaning up. Hermione glanced anxiously into the other room every few minutes to make sure Lupin was still sitting beside Tonks and speaking to Arthur Weasley. She was a little worried that he would leave before she would have the chance to pull him away, and this wasn’t the kind of conversation she could start up with him with everyone hanging about. 

“Are you okay?” Ron asked finally, and she realized she had been holding the same dish for several minutes, thinking about the situation again. Draco and Snape had vanished as far as anyone knew, gone the night of Dumbledore’s death. She had been struggling to deal with this fact probably more than anyone, maybe even Harry. Snape’s words had haunted her, lingering in the corners of her mind with each moment that past. Something terrible is going to happen tonight, and it will change everything, but you must still find a way to help him. She was left with nothing but to assume that Snape had known. He had known that Dumbledore was going to die, that he and Draco would flee, and he had implored her to continue her search for answers. It was terrifying to trust his words, and seemed contrary to his advice, but she was doing it anyway. She was still hoping to find out why she and Draco were bound, what purpose they could possibly serve, and that was why she needed Lupin. He must have known about the bond the Potters shared. It was possible that something in his memories, in his mind, might help her to unlock what was happening to her. 

“Sorry,” she told Ron, glancing back towards him. “I just want to talk to Professor Lupin about something before he goes,” she explained. Ron nodded and looked toward the dishes. 

“Just go,” he told her. “I’ll take that.” He took the dish from her as the twins began sending back the already clean items into the cupboards with their wands. 

“Are you sure?” she asked carefully, not wanting to abandon the rest of them. 

“We’ve got three blokes that can do magic and Ginny. We’ll be fine,” he assured her, waving his free hand as he walked back toward the work. 

“Okay. Thanks, Ron.” She moved out of the kitchen and into the living room, her eyes falling immediately to the newlyweds. Lupin had his hand casually resting on Tonks’ knee as he laughed with Arthur about something. It was good to see laughter when there had been so much tension lately. Retrieving Harry and the plans involved were causing them all stress. She just wanted it to be over, to know that he, and everyone else, would make it through the risky move intact. 

“Professor Lupin, could I talk to you for a minute?” she asked when there seemed to be a lull in the conversation. Her question drew the eyes of everyone in the room, but she tried not to look suspicious. She knew that her request would draw curiosity on its own. There was no need to fuel the fire with a guilty expression. 

“Yes, of course, Hermione.” Lupin patted Tonks’ knee gently and stood up from the sofa to move toward Hermione. She led him back through the kitchen and out the door, her heart pounding as Fred shouted some teasing remark about her getting out of all the work. Lupin shut the door gently behind him, ignoring the jibe as well. 

“Is everything okay?” he asked, but Hermione just shook her head and kept walking, putting necessary space between themselves and the home. Extendable ears need not hear this conversation, not when she was keeping so many secrets. She stopped at a safe distance away that still lay within the boundaries of the protection placed on the Weasley land and turned to face him. 

“I know this may be painful,” she began, trying to prepare him as best she could, “but I need to know more about Lily and James Potter’s bond.” 

Lupin faltered, his legs seeming to weaken momentarily, before he gathered himself. “What?” he whispered, his voice deep and rough with surprise and pain. 

“Professor Snape told me. I need to know more about it, please. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” she assured him, her mind already back tracking at the expression staring back at her. 

“Prof … when?” Lupin asked, moving a step closer, his eyes wide now with fear. 

“Before … at school,” she said quickly, realizing that Lupin had thought she had seen Snape recently. He seemed to relax at her words but only marginally. 

“I didn’t know he knew,” Lupin confessed as his hand pulled at the back of his neck. His skin turned white at the tight grasp. Hermione watched him carefully, taking in each movement as he looked back toward the house, no doubt understanding her need for privacy now and then crouched down to settle himself in the grass. Hermione followed his lead, sitting beside him with her knees crossed. Suddenly, Lupin gave her a hard look, and she felt like a small girl again about to be chastised. “Why would he tell you something like that?” 

“I …” Hermione faltered, unsure what path to take. She could tell him the truth, honestly he could have already figured it out, but Snape had told her to trust no one, and there was little to be gained by explaining her discovery of own bond to Remus Lupin, or anyone else, at this point. “I can’t tell you.” 

“Just tell me, is it Harry?” Remus asked, searching her face for the answer. 

“No,” she sputtered out. So, he knew, or suspected at the very least. 

“Okay. I … I never thought I would be telling anyone about this.” He stared down at the ground, his hand grazing across the blades of grass in front of him. 

“I know. I’m sorry,” Hermione told him, truly pained that she was putting him through reliving whatever memories were floating through his mind. It seemed to her that in all of this, Remus had suffered so much more than most people. He had dealt with life as a werewolf for so many years, finally found a group of people who loved and trusted him, and had it all torn away in one terrible night. It wasn’t fair, but few things Voldemort touched were. His path through the Wizarding World left a terrible wake of misery and devastation. 

“Lily was friends with Severus, back in school, perhaps” - he glanced at her again - “he may have told you that. I was also friends with her but not as close. We were in all the same classes. We both worked incredibly hard. She was beautiful, funny, intelligent. It was hard not to be in love with her.” He paused, seemingly lost in something Hermione wished she could see. “James was horrible, really. He was terrible to Severus from the beginning, really awful, but we were all kids, and we jumped on and helped. There was this aura about him. I’ve truly never met another person like him. It was like when he spoke to you, nothing had ever made more sense than those words.” He shook his head, shaking his sandy hair as the wind blew through it. 

“Lily was never charmed by him. She knew things, saw things, we couldn’t have understood then. We were too young and stupid, like Snape. If he had been one of my students …” he trailed off, sighing loudly. “She called James on all his shit. He chased her incessantly, and she refused him at every turn.”

“When did it change?” Hermione asked, knowing there must have been some point, some event that led them to some sort of understanding. 

“Seventh year. Quidditch match. Gryffindor won the house cup, and I honestly thought Lily was having a heart attack. She was in pain, but losing her mind with excitement, which wasn’t like her at all. Her arm was horribly hurt. Come to find out James broke his in the last moments of the game.” Remus closed his eyes tightly. Hermione had to resist the urge to reach out and touch his hand, to encourage and thank him. He was a teacher … sort of … and it would be inappropriate in her mind to show him such intimacy. 

“They spent the night in the Hospital Wing together. James never said what they talked about, but they came out … different. It was crazy, really. I’ve never seen anything like it. She hated him, absolutely despised him, and then … it was so strange. We never even knew they were bound until Harry was born. James was in so much pain he could barely stay with her.” Hermione stared, horrified by the concept. 

“Did they always share pain?” she asked. 

“Not always. I think it was significant things somehow. They were never specific. There were other things. They seemed to have ways of communicating when they shouldn’t have. It was surreal, but they made it clear they didn’t want to share details with anyone, which is why I was so shocked that Professor Snape knew and spoke to you about it.” 

“But they knew they were bound?” Hermione asked. 

“They spoke to Dumbledore about it that first night. He knew,” Remus told her.

“Did they … what if they weren’t really in love?” Hermione croaked this question through her bone dry throat. What if she was forcibly made to feel in love with Draco Malfoy if she spent time with him alone? 

“Magic can not make you fall in love, Hermione. You know that.” Remus assured her, and he crossed the gap she had been unable to bridge, placing a hand gently on hers. “No one can make you do something you don’t want to.” 

Hermione felt her eyes shut as she tried to calm her breathing. “I’m afraid,” she said softly, needing to tell someone, to have the words out of her mouth. 

“I know,” he told her. “I’m afraid, too. Whoever it is, why ever this is happening to you, trust it. What LIly and James had...” he paused again, looking toward the house. “I love Tonks dearly, but I don’t know if I will ever truly understand the way those two connected with one another. It was a gift, not a curse.” 

“We needed Harry,” Hermione insisted, remembering Snape’s words. “They were just a tool.” 

“They were people who made their own choices. Their bond couldn’t make them do any of it. I promise you.” 

“But you said you didn’t really know much about it,” Hermione reminded him, still thinking about Malfoy, about what on earth their magic could be up to. She didn’t even know where he was or when she would see him again. They were going to try to move Harry tomorrow. What if the Death Eaters found out? Would they be there? Would he be there? What if one of them was killed or injured? Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered the sensations that he had caused in her before. 

“I know enough,” Lupin said. Her skin prickled against the warm night air as she tried to believe him.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Crucio

He knew it was bad when his father came to get him. He was in his mother’s sitting room reading, and she sat across from him in a white armchair. She had recovered, but she wasn’t the same. Something inside of her had changed. He hadn’t yet been able to determine what exactly had changed, but he knew that it was something the same way he knew his own name or the color of the sky. It just was. She had been one way before, and now she was another. 

His father walked into the room with his eyes downcast. He wasn’t the same either, but his changes were more obvious, more exposed. The Dark Lord had taken his wand and might as well have taken his very soul. Lucius had been a man to be respected, feared, and adored. Now he was broken, his very reason for everything he was stripped from him as easily as a stick of wood had been plucked from his fingers. 

“No,” his mother said, not even looking up from her embroidery. She had learned as a young girl, and though he was sure she hated the task, she kept it up year after year. 

“What?” his father asked as if he didn’t understand. The word was a farce. They all understood her meaning clearly.

Narcissa set her work down delicately on the small table beside her chair. She pushed her body up with practiced grace and faced her husband with clasped hands. “You are not taking him down there,” she told him coldly. 

“The Dark Lord calls him. What would you have me do?” The way his father pleaded hurt Draco in a way he could hardly identify. He loved his parents, both of them. They were imperfect people, that was easy enough to see now, but they loved him and each other. His father had made mistakes, he could admit that now as well. His father had put his faith in the wrong person, been lured with honey to the slaughter. There wasn’t glory in the Dark Lord’s world for anyone but the Dark Lord, no matter what lies he spun. His mother could see that now. Draco wasn’t sure if his father had realized this truth yet or not. He hoped so. He really did, but he was beginning to hate him. Without any desire to do so, hardness was creeping into his heart, blocking it against the man who would deliver him to that monster once again. Draco’s eyes fluttered shut and his mother was on the floor again screaming for his failures. No. No matter what, she would never be hurt again. 

“Stand up. Protect your family,” Narcissa demanded. 

“Then he would just kill or torture us both,” Lucius assured her. “You know this.” 

“I don’t care what he does to you, Lucius!” Narcissa shouted. “He is mine! MINE! And, you gave him to that monster!” The expression of unfiltered rage that filled his mother's face reminded Draco of the Veela so long ago, a lifetime ago really, at the Quidditch World Cup. It was beautifully horrifying. 

“Keep your voice down,” Lucius demanded, grabbing his wife by the shoulder. Narcissa’s hand moved through the air as fast as a viper, attacking his cheek with a sickening crack. Lucius released her immediately, staring down at his own hand with empty sockets of despair instead of reaching for the red splotch on his face. 

“I, Cissa, I’m sor—” he began. 

“I don’t want your apologies, Lucius!” She took a step back, turning to look at Draco. “Go,” she said quietly, with silent force. “Go to your master.” The way the words slipped from her lips felt like venom in his veins. 

“Mother,” he started, taking a step forward, his hand extended. 

“Don’t touch me,” she said coldly. “Don’t either of you touch me.” She moved away, her feet taking her quickly from the room, the slam of the door shaking the floor beneath their shoes. 

“Come, Draco,” Lucius said, his tone resigned. Draco gave the door to his mother’s bedroom one last look before he followed his father. He had little choice at this point. He had little choice left the moment his father came to the room. The Dark Lord would not be defied. His father had been right on that account. Disobeying him now would only make it worse. He had proven that Narcissa was dispensable. He had taken Lucius’ wand, which had been in their family for generations, and not bothered to return it to him. Draco he had surely expected to die last year attempting to kill Dumbledore or at his own hand for failure. The Malfoy’s had fallen quickly, dropping nearly off the hierarchy. It was a surreal feeling to recognize his own pointlessness, one Draco did not enjoy. The best bet for all three of them was to just do whatever the Dark Lord commanded. Perhaps they could work their way back up the chain. Perhaps someone else would mess up. 

Lucius was silent as they walked, but he flexed his fingers before pulling them into a fist and then repeating the gesture. He was too aware of his master’s power to speak now. His warning to Narcissa had not been vain fear. Lord Voldemort knew all. Draco pulled at his mind as he walked, enacting shields around everything. He still had no idea what he was hiding, but he assumed watching his mother embroider while he read a school book was a safe memory. He held it at the forefront of his mind, using it to protect everything beneath it. 

His father led him down into the cellar of the house, moving with quick steps. The Dark Lord would not be kept waiting. Draco followed, his thumb grazing his wand in his pocket. The gesture gave him some small comfort. When they finally reached a long hall lit by firelight, the Dark Lord was waiting for them. At his feet, two men kneeled on the stone floor, their heads down. 

“Draco, I’m so pleased to see you,” Lord Voldemort told him, smiling as he fingered his own wand delicately. 

“I am at your service, my Lord,” Draco said quickly, bowing his own head in reverence despite the ice running down his back at the man’s voice.

“Perhaps you remember Rowle and Dolohov.” Long fingers motioned to the men on the floor.

“Yes, my Lord.” Draco nodded. 

“It seems that” – Voldemort moved, his steps bringing him slowly closer to Draco – “our friends need some reminding of what happens when you disappoint me.” Draco’s mouth was suddenly dry, his mind racing over the memories of his mother on the floor, her barely alive in bed, her weak voice when she had finally woken up. He felt his focus slipping and struggled to keep his shields in place, but they remained. By the time the Dark Lord set one cold hand on his shoulder, Draco had regained his composure enough to not flinch in response. “You may go, Lucius. I have no use for you.” Draco heard his father’s retreating steps, but he didn’t dare look back at him as he left the room. “You remember what happens” - the Dark Lord leaned down, his lips at Draco’s ear setting the tiny hairs across his skin on edge – “what happens when I’m disappointed. Don’t you, Draco?” 

“Yes, sir,” he said, proud of the lack of tremors in his voice. 

“Show me.” The Dark Lord hissed the words into Draco’s ear, and he felt his hand move of its own accord to touch his wand in understanding. 

“My Lord,” he said, unsure if he could, if he would. 

“Show me, now, Draco.” The Dark Lord moved to Draco’s other side, and he beckoned with one hand. “Come, Rowle. You first, I think.” The large blond man moved from the floor where he had been still kneeling. He walked slowly toward them until he was just a few feet before Draco and Lord Voldemort. “Now,” he said again, and there was something unhinged and unnatural in his voice that was usually concealed in his cold calmness. 

Draco lifted his wand from his pocket, hand shaking as the word ran through his mind along with the same images of his mother. He could do this. He would do it. His fingers resisted, not wanting to lift, his arm weighed a thousand pounds, but he pulled it up, extending it straight out. Rowle looked him in the eyes, and Draco thought he may have seen pity or understanding, though it was surely a projection, and then he opened his mouth and imagined Voldemort writhing on the floor, his cold demeanor replaced his high screams. His walls were iron around the thought as his closed his eyes and said, “Crucio!” 

Rowle began to scream instantly. His knees hit stone with a sickening crunch, but Draco pushed it away, focusing on his fantasy. Focusing on his hatred, on his anger, feeding the spell. The screaming continued for an eternity, filling him with the surety that he was going to die this way, at the hand of some other Death Eater one day, probably in this very cellar. There was no pleasing a mad man. There was no rising when there was only one person that mattered. He stopped, breathing heavy, his hand reaching up to wipe away the sweat as his eyes opened.

Rowle was writing on the floor beneath him. Draco felt a rush of sick remorse and struggled not to vomit. Vomit later. Not now. Not now. He began to drop his arm as Voldemort spoke. “More, Rowle, or shall we end it and feed you to Nagini?” The Dark Lord asked in that same voice laced with insanity. “Lord Voldemort is not sure that he will forgive this time … You called me back for this, to tell me that Harry Potter has escaped again?” Draco felt something light in his chest, burning hot at the mention of Harry’s name, something that felt disturbingly different than the despair that had riddled him for weeks, something he could no longer even name. “Draco, give Rowle another taste of our displeasure.” Draco almost didn’t hear. He almost didn’t obey. He was searching his mind for a wonder, for a name for something that hurt that way, he knew that he knew it, that he could place it. “Do it, or feel my wrath yourself!” the Dark Lord demanded. 

Draco lifted his wand again, his fantasy filling his mind again as he cast, “Crucio.” 

He watched the flames behind Rowle as his spell forced the man to scream again, the smell of urine filling the air as he lost his ability to control his own body. Harry Potter was still out there somewhere, still trying to save the bloody world. 

Hope, Draco thought, and it burned.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: Grimmauld

It had been ten days. Ten days since she had pulled Remus out of the house, heard him tell her about his dead friend’s bond, felt guilt penetrate her being at making him repeat history long buried. Ten days and nothing was the same, nothing at all. They had fled the wedding, terrified, fought with Death Eaters, and finally found a tentative solace at Grimmauld, but none of them felt safe. 

The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.

The concept had been so jarring at first. They had flown into action, responding on instinct and adrenaline until they had reached this place, this hallowed home that represented everything they were fighting against. Then they had been faced with the curses set for Snape, and Harry’s scar had started burning. She had thought the connection closed, but it was clear that it was not. 

She worried about Harry here. It was a reminder of everything he had lost, everything that had been given up so that he might live this life, a life so marked with heartache and loss. Once they had settled, once the dust had begun to fall, they were on edge, terrified, wondering what had happened to the people they loved and cared for.

Ron particularly had so much at stake, so much to lose. Every single member of his family gathered in one place. She knew the idea that some, that any of them, could have been killed, or worse, was foremost on his mind, lingering there like a snake ready to attack. It was a relief that Arthur had been able to send his Patronus, but that had been days ago, right after they had arrived. Anything could have happened since then. 

They struggled to find a balance. Terror followed them like a shadow, waking her in a cold sweat when Harry had only gone upstairs to Sirius’ room. Then they had found R.A.B. She was unimaginably grateful for Kreacher’s story, for the hope that it had given them. They held onto the information like a lifeline as they waited for him to return. And then, they had noticed the Death Eaters gathered outside their door, and Lupin had appeared at the house with the news that the full might of the Ministry was now at the hands of the Death Eaters, Harry was being hunted for the murder of Dumbledore, the Muggle-born Register, and that the Order members were all alive, but being heavily targeted. And, then he had offered himself as help, and the truth about Tonks had come out. That argument had been painful, horrible truly, but Lupin needed to be with Tonks. He would see that in the end, of course. He was scared just like the rest of them, and now he had even more reason to be. His wife was bringing a child into the world, this broken world that seemed to be crashing down around them, the world that would surely be treating people like him even more cruelly now. 

When Kreacher had finally returned, she let herself pray that finding the locket would be easy. But, life was rarely easy for their trio, their little family of three misfits. Mundungus had spun them a story about a woman who they had quickly realized was Dolores Jane Umbridge, one of the people Hermione hated most in the world. The thought of what she had done to Harry, done to all of the students, in their fifth year made Hermione’s blood boil hot with a rage that sought out revenge. Hermione had long ago accepted that she was capable of many things that she had never imagined she would ever find a need for: trapping a Beetle in a jar, placing a terrible spell on a piece of parchment. She had spent many a night dreaming of what she might one day to Umbridge, given the chance. The centaurs had been given the opportunity to set her right, and it had changed nothing. Hermione was also well equipped at timing, and this was not the time to concern herself with revenge. They needed the locket, and so she pushed the rage down and turned her attention to the task at hand. They needed to find a way into the Ministry, and so they began to monitor it, but Hermione needed other answers, answers that ran deeper than Horcruxes and Voldemort, answers she couldn’t tell the boys about, no matter how badly she wished to be able to do so. 

The Black family were an ancient and most noble house. She knew this, as did everyone. The chance that someone in the line had engaged in a bond had occurred to her shortly after their arrival, and so she buried herself in the library as often as possible. She pulled books from shelves, searching them desperately. Ron and Harry would ask what she was doing, of course. She would tell them she was doing research, looking for anything that might help, and they would join in occasionally. It wasn’t that she thought it was impossible that she might find something that could help them on their hunt, it just wasn’t her primary goal. 

She was now utterly positive that Draco Malfoy was a Death Eater, and she was bound to him, something about them twisted together. She had no idea what the next step should be, but Snape seemed to think there was a reason for it. The only thing keeping her going were Snape’s words. In times of trouble, magic has a way of working things out. Magic had needed James and Lily together, for them to see that there was more to them than bickering children. Something had happened, had changed them, so that Harry might be born, so that the world might have a chance to protect itself. It seemed good, a positive intention. Her only hope, the thread she held onto, was that perhaps something good could come of her being bound to Malfoy, but what? 

She hated to not understand, to be kept in the dark, and this bond was a black hole of darkness, shrouding her in its wake. She needed answers like she needed air, and so she inhaled the Black books with fervor. Some of them were terrifying. The things Hermione found about Muggles and Muggleborns made her body shiver. At several points, she had gotten up, left the library with a book open on the table, and gone to make a cup of tea. She had needed the time to gather herself after she had seen what they had done to Muggleborns over the years. It was one thing to hear general hints in History of Magic. It was another entirely to be faced with a dissection of a Muggleborn begun when the subject seemed to still be living, held in stasis by magic. She had vomited on two separate occasions. These were the books she read in the dark when she had slipped away from their makeshift bedroom in the drawing room to read into the night. Harry and Ron had no idea she was consuming this material. They would have pulled it away, demanded she stop, but this was Pureblood history. Some of it was easy and beautiful, some of it was dark and terrifying. 

She found a couple mentions of bonds in the library at first. They were all fleeting, just references to a member of the family who had married someone else, and apparently been bound to them as well, their magical cores tied together. The words were frustrating, forcing her to ask more and more and more questions, never answering a single one. And, then on the tenth day, she found it. 

Hermione was sitting at the table, Harry at the window. Ron was out, spying at the Ministry. She had settled on a very old book about dreaming, thinking perhaps she might be able to help Harry block out Voldemort, even at night, another option than the one he had failed, or refused, to learn. The connection between Harry and Voldemort disturbed her, driving her to worry. It was likely that he had learned his lesson with Sirius, but at the same time, she was sure that he was having more trouble sleeping than he was letting on, and she wondered if Voldemort may be causing that in some way that ran deeper than worrying about the future. 

Since Harry was there, she couldn’t peruse her darker materials, and so she flipped through the book on dreams. It was interesting enough writing, but most of it seemed like frivolous reaching to her. There were entire chapters musing on the prophetic power of dreams to determine your path through life. This sounded a lot like something Professor Trelawney would spout at anyone who stood still long enough to listen, and Hermione was very much not interested. In the middle of all this, quite unexpectedly, she read over text that stopped her eyes abruptly. 

Though communication through dreams has been attempted many times, it is believed to not be possible, though some have claimed success. Ottilie Fawley once wrote in a letter to her sister, Adelia, that she and her husband, Larkin Fawley, shared “a connection true and deep” that ran into their nightly dreams with such vivid clarity as to “reflect the enchanting days of our life.” Ottilie seemed to believe that she and Larkin were truly able to speak to each other through their dreams, even when they were separated. 

The book ran on, changing topic quickly, the author clearly finding little credence in the musings of a housewife bragging to her sister about her “enchanting” marriage. Hermione cared very little if her marriage was enchanting or not, but went back, reading the words again anyway. They stirred in her another memory from her conversation with Remus. She closed her eyes trying to remember exactly what he had said about Lily and James. They seemed to have ways of communicating when they shouldn’t have. 

Could it be? Could this comment by Ottilie Fawley, which had been so easily disparaged by the author as the boasting of a simple woman to another simple woman be the key Hermione had been so desperately searching for? Dreams? 

It seemed so odd. If it was that simple, wouldn’t she have stumbled upon him in her dreams at some point in the past few months? She wasn’t sure that Ottilie was bound to Larkin. It was a guess at best, a reach that she wasn’t sure she should make. But, she was sure about James and Lily. They were bound. She had been told by two people now. Sure, one of them had murdered her headmaster and seemed to be working for Voldemort, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be trusted about this, and his testimony had been backed up by Remus Lupin, a man she did trust without any doubt. 

Hermione read the text again, hoping that it would reveal something new to her, but it failed to provide any more answers. She glanced over at Harry, wishing she could talk this over with him, tell him any of it, but she didn’t trust him, not with this. Harry was one of her dearest friends. She loved him very much, and she would gladly put her life in his hands, but when it came to Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy, Harry lost all sense of rationality. Once she had begun her story, he would lose the ability to be impartial. He would surely think that all of this was scheming of Voldemort designed to lure Hermione into some trap or something. It was possible, but that would be a very long game that seemed to have no purpose. 

She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to shift from the book of dreams to the notes she had started about the Ministry. There was too much to think about these days, too much to do, too much in her brain. Hopefully, Ron would have some information to add to her notes when he returned. Her stomach flipped at the thought of him Apparating onto the top step, even with the cloak on. 

“Are they still out there?” she asked, even though she knew the answer. 

“Yes,” Harry confirmed, his eyes still staring out. She knew he was just as concerned about Ron, if not more. He felt responsible for them both. Hermione pushed back from the table and walked over to the window to look out at the two men gazing up the street. 

“Come on,” Hermione told Harry, her hand moving to rest on his shoulder. “I’ll make some lunch. Ron should be back soon,” 

“Yeah.” Harry nodded, but she could tell he had to force himself to stand, moving his eyes away from the street.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine: Return

Packing his suitcase seemed the most ridiculous of things to be doing the night before the Hogwarts Express would take Draco to Hogwarts for his final year. Despite this, he was doing it anyway. After he had been forced to torture the idiots who had let Potter, Granger, and Weasley escape them, he had begun to look at his father in an entirely new way. His father was weak. He had lost all of the power he had once possessed in this hierarchy of madness, but more than anything, he had no ability to protect Narcissa any longer. Draco should have understood this back when she had been tortured by the Dark Lord, but it had taken time for the situation to truly sink in. His mother had no longer had any protection, except him. He was dead set that he would not let anything else happen to her, not so long as he lived at least — or at least that had been the plan. 

Instead, his mother had insisted that he pack his things, that he return to school, that she wouldn’t see him spend a single day in this place that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Even in her own vulnerability, she was trying to protect him. In the end, he had been given no choice but to follow her wishes, even though obeying her left an ashy taste in his mouth. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see her laying before him, her body a husk on the precipice of death. What if it happened again? Who would save her?

Behind him, the bedroom door opened and closed. He didn’t need to turn to know it would be her. His father and his haunted eyes stayed far away from Draco these days — whether out of guilt or by Narcissa’s orders, Draco was not sure. Part of him hated it, longed for the days when he had seen his father so differently, but part of him was glad, glad that he didn’t have another reason to lie, another interaction to feign. 

“Draco,” she said softly, her voice carrying through the room even so. 

“Yes?” he asked. He picked up a scarf from the bed and threw it into his trunk. He didn’t even care what he took to Hogwarts. What did it matter now? The Ministry had fallen. Who knew what Hogwarts would even be now? He would likely be safe there. Snape was to be Headmaster. He was a Pureblood, a Death Eater, but his family was still making up for mistakes, so many mistakes, and everyone with connections would know that. He would never admit it out loud, never speak the words to another living soul or even when he believed himself alone, but he had hoped that Potter had had some sort of plan, that there was the possibility of another future, but so far there had been nothing. He knew from scattered spying that the Death Eaters were watching a few locations around the clock, but he had successfully stayed out of the rotation. This blessing he attributed to Snape, even though he wasn’t sure if that was correct. Potter seemed to have vanished, taking the small amount of hope Draco had allowed himself to feel along with him. 

“I don’t want you to go like this.” Her hand rested on his back between his shoulder blades, and he closed his eyes to collect himself, remembering times when she would gently reassure him when he was small, and the hardest thing he faced was struggling to make friends.

“You want me to go, and I’m going,” his voice was harsh, too harsh, but it was difficult to control these days. Everything felt so out of his control. 

“I want you to be safe,” she whispered, though they both knew if someone wanted to hear, they would. 

“I’m no safer there than here,” he assured her. They had already argued this for hours, there was no point in starting again. 

“Severus will be with you,” she said in the same soft tone. 

“Snape? You think —” 

“I know, Draco.” She moved around him, settling herself on his bed. She lifted a sweater from the pile of crumpled clothes and began to fold it. He watched her as she moved through item after item, loading his trunk. 

“Why do you trust him so much?” he asked after several long minutes. 

“He’s a good man,” she said simply. 

“He killed Dumbledore,” Draco replied, praying that they weren’t being listened to. He hated the feeling of someone at every door, especially in their own home. 

“We’ve all done terrible things.”

“Not you,” Draco told her. 

“Even me. Especially me,” she sighed as she dropped matching socks into the trunk and looked up at him, her eyes seeming to scan him slowly, taking in every particle of his face. “Trust him,” she said, though it sounded more like begging. “Trust him, and do as he says.” 

“I don’t —” Draco started, still unconvinced. It was so difficult to trust anyone these days. What was he even trusting in? He held no more love for the Dark Lord. It seemed a terrible thing to trust one of his closest servants. 

“I would trust him with my life again and again, darling.” His mother stood, her hand outstretched until it cupped his cheek. “You are so strong, so strong, but sometimes, we need other people to help us regardless of our own strength.” 

Draco hated how good it felt to have her pull him in, have her hug him again like she did when he was small, to breath in the familiar scent of his mother. It brought a hard lump to the surface of his throat, a lump he had to cough to break up. She rubbed at his back in slow circles and pulled back. “Okay,” Draco told her, though he still wasn’t convinced he could do what she was asking. It was a dangerous thing to trust anyone. 

“I’ll send your dinner up. Just … go and study and try to focus on school. You’ll be home and back with us soon enough.” The request was utterly ridiculous, the idea that he could focus on Arithmancy or Transfiguration when his mother was here in this hell was beyond all likelihood, but he found himself nodding sullenly anyway. Anything to try to give her some comfort. 

“I love you,” she told him, giving his hand one final squeeze before she crossed the room again. The door opened and shut behind him once again, and he kept his eyes on the open trunk. When she had gone, he leaned forward, his hands gripping the edges tightly as he focused on keeping his breathing calm. 

XXX

 

He had been early. He didn’t want to deal with the politics. His mother was eager to see him gone. It just worked out that way for both of them. She had smiled as he left her. He had tried to keep his face from turning sour, but he was surely failing. He had walked towards the back of the train, not caring about the small smattering of students that were already aboard, until he found the very last compartment. It was still empty, of course. He took out a book, sat down, and kept his eyes away from the door. 

Pansy found him first. She seemed unperturbed by any of the changes to the world, but she had always been very good at hiding her emotions. It was a trait most Pureblood girls learned from a very young age. She sat beside him, but seemed to realize he wasn’t in the mood for words. She was silent as she used her wand to change the colors of her nail polish. 

Blaise followed, apparently still considering a Malfoy worthy of sitting with. Draco hadn’t been sure where the other boy would fall. His mother was very much about power, and the Malfoys were floundering. Blaise had never been a good friend, but he was good enough, Draco supposed. 

Their final companion for the ride was Daphne Greengrass. She slipped in just as the train was about to leave, breathing heavily as she asked if she could sit with them. Pansy nodded, pointing to the seat next to Blaise, who ignored her. As the train began to move, slipping quickly away from the station, Draco began to glance away from his book, taking in the site of his three companions. He thought initially that he had been setting a tone of sullen silence, but looking at their faces, it was clear they all felt the weight of what was happening outside. 

An hour in, Daphne was the first to speak. “Teach me that?” she asked Pansy who had moved from her fingers to her toes. Draco wanted to scorn them, the words filled his mouth even, but when Pansy looked up, her eyes suspicious for just a flash before she smiled, he stopped dead. He would give anything to be distracted by a new spell right now. 

Two hours in, two Death Eaters searched their compartment. They gave Draco long looks before shaking their heads and turning away. His companions stared long after they were gone until Blaise finally broke the silence “Why the fuck would Potter be hiding in here?”

“Why would he even be on the train?” Daphne asked, seemingly amazed that the Death Eaters had been searching at all. “How dense would he have to be to come to Hogwarts?” 

“Even Potter isn’t that much of an idiot,” Pansy added. To the casual observer she would seem her normal self, but Draco heard the small escalation of her tone and noticed the way she tapped her foot silently against the floor. She was afraid, nervous, confused. They all were, even him. 

“His Mudblood wouldn’t let him,” Blaise told them, “even if he was that stupid.” 

“If they have any brains, they’ll have left the country,” Daphne added, nodding at Blaise. 

Draco actually laughed then, trying to imagine Potter abandoning them all, running away, never to return. “He’s too bloody Gryffindor for that,” he spat. “Granger’s parents are gone, fled. Weasley is apparently sick. Potter has vanished.” Draco stared out the window at the countryside, as if he might see the trio out there staring back. “They have to be up to something.” 

“They’ll all be killed the first time they try anything,” Blaise guessed. 

“Potter has a good deal of stupid luck,” Draco countered. 

“No one has enough luck to defeat him,” Pansy whispered. She crossed her arms, and Draco began to wonder what exactly her summer had been like. He had been so consumed by his own plight that he hadn’t taken a moment to consider what his schoolmates may have been dealing with. In most cases, it was likely less dramatic than his circumstances, but it was possible that some of them, like Pansy, had been struggling just as much. 

“He’s done it before,” Daphne breathed, barely loud enough to be heard. They all stared in dumbfounded amazement. 

“Don’t ever say that again,” Draco told her. He knew his voice was cold and hard, but she needed to realize the danger she was putting them all in. “Ever. Unless you want us all killed.” Daphne had the decency to look abashed, and the group fell back into silence.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten: Request

Harry and Ron were asleep downstairs, both presumably lost in their dreams. Dreams. What a funny thing to keep her up all night, preparing to risk everything for a chance at being able to reach Draco Malfoy. Her breath hitched and then quickened as she began to hyperventilate. She could be about to get them all killed. She was fairly sure of her assessment of the situation, but not entirely. If she was wrong, if Snape couldn’t be trusted … the ramifications would be … She shook her head, forcing her breath to steady as her heart continued to thunder against her chest. She had made her decision. 

Hermione reached inside of her small charmed bag, the bag which contained so very many useful things, and pulled out the portrait she had shoved inside earlier that evening. She had thought of the useful painting and darted off to retrieve it, knowing that it could be an important link to the Headmaster for her. Phineas Nigellus Black was nowhere to be seen. She leaned the frame against the bed and sat before it, her legs crossed, hands resting gently on her quivering knees. 

“Phineas?” she asked. Her voice cracked, so she repeated the call. “Phineas?” 

She waited then. It was entirely possible he wouldn’t come. All of this worry and stress could be for nothing. He could be asleep or angry that she had shoved him in a bag and refuse to speak to her, though it had only been a few hours, so perhaps he hadn’t realized. 

“Phineas?” she asked again. “Please talk to me,” she added, begging him in case it was the latter keeping him away. 

He was frowning when he entered the portrait, but she breathed a sigh of relief, letting her lips curve into a smile. “Thank you.” 

“What is it?” he snapped, clearly not amused with her summons. 

“I need you to pass a message to Professor Snape for me,” she told him. She had no idea if he would cooperate, but she desperately needed him to. 

“Headmaster Snape,” the former Hogwarts Headmaster corrected. “Why would I do that?” 

“It’s important. I wouldn’t ask if I had any other option.” She immediately regretted her words as the frown turned to a sneer. 

“What a compliment.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I just meant I wouldn’t bother you if …” 

“You don’t think” — Phineas’ words cut in, overpowering her own — “that taking my portrait and hiding it away in total darkness is bothering me?” So he had noticed. She wondered then if he could feel his frame, if it was tied to him in some way. 

Despite the twinge of guilt she felt at his words, Hermione had to resist the urge to sigh or shake the frame before her. She needed him. “Harry and Ron would be concerned about your connection to Prof - Headmaster Snape through your other portrait.” 

“You don’t seem to have the same concern,” he told her. 

“I’ve been left with no choice but to trust him. I knew that I would need your help to reach out to him.” She had exhausted every option, every single half cocked idea she could come up with. None seemed even close to possible, none but this one which had just become a possibility that very day when she learned of Snape’s appointment, which was why she was willing to accept the risk that she could be wrong about her old professor. Listening to Harry scream just that evening while Voldemort filled his head was enough to reassure her of that. They needed to destroy him, and she had to do everything in her power to work towards that end. 

“What is it that you are hoping the Headmaster will do for you, Ms. Granger?”

“I need him to get me something from Draco Malfoy,” she explained.

The response to her words was an immediate switch to a defensive anger. “Are you attempting to use me to injure my own blood? You think that I would…” 

“No. No. No,” Hermione corrected, instantly worried that the offended portrait would leave, not to return, leaving her without options once again. “Ask Professor Snape. I mean Malfoy no harm.” 

“I find that hard to believe. I know about his relationship with Harry Potter. That boy tried to kill him!” His voice was full of venom. 

“It was an accident. Harry never meant to hurt him so badly,” Hermione explained, though she still had conflicting feelings on the incident herself and what it had awakened in her. Harry had been wrong. He had almost killed Draco, but he never would have done that if he had known. 

“Yet, he did, whether it be through ignorance or intent,” Phineas snapped. 

“Please, just, listen to me and talk to Headmaster Snape. He would never let me do anything to hurt Draco.” She wasn’t sure of much, certainly not Snape’s loyalties, but she was sure of that. 

“Speak quickly.” 

“I need an object of his, something he claims ownership over. It should have some value to him, but it need not be overly important. I need the Headmaster to give him something of mine as well. We will need to arrange some way of trading the items.” 

“I will return,” the man said simply, and then he was gone, having moved from the frame. 

Hermione felt a sag of relief move through her body. Speaking to the man had been even more exhausting than she had expected. He was looking for offense in everything she said or did. It was hard to stay calm and polite, but it was clear he wouldn’t respond well to her getting defensive. She rubbed at her face with a shaky hand. It was happening. She was setting up an exchange with Professor Snape. She was getting what she needed. 

The answer had come in another book, another study of dreams hidden deep in the shelves of the Black library. She doubted anyone had even touched the thing in a hundred years or more. She had nearly been afraid of destroying it by turning the pages, but the information had been invaluable. She needed something of his in her possession, a connection to him, before she could attempt to connect with him in their dreams. There was a charm that went along with it as well, which would be the difficult part, not for her, but for Draco. 

She, Harry, and Ron had just learned that Snape was Headmaster that very evening. Along with this news had come the information of the Carrows placement as Professors at Hogwarts. Harry had decided that tomorrow they would infiltrate the Ministry and steal back the locket. She had no idea how that would go, but she needed to act quickly in case things went badly. She was hoping that Snape would have the ability to get something to her tomorrow, and then plant her own object into Draco’s life, but she had no idea what Snape would tell him. As far as she knew, Draco still had no idea that they had a bond, that something was inherently connecting them, that the magic which flowed through them, through every magical person they loved and hated, believed they needed to achieve some goal. 

The wait seemed to drag on forever as she kept an ear out for any noise that might convey that Ron or Harry had happened to wake up. She wouldn’t be surprised. They were all on edge, anxious about the next day and what it would mean. The possibility that they may get a Horcrux was exciting and terrifying at the same time. 

Finally, Phineas returned, his expression even more sullen if that was possible. “The Headmaster has agreed to help you, Ms. Granger. He has requested that I gather more information about what you need from him.” Hermione resisted the urge to smile at this. Phineas was clearly irritated to play go between for this conversation. 

“I need him to get the item from Draco. It must be given voluntarily. He cannot steal it or take it against Draco’s wishes. Draco must cast an incantation over the item, Somnis Revelare. I will do the same to something of mine and leave it on the front step of Grimmauld Place tomorrow morning at 8eight. He should come gather the item and replace it with Draco’s precisely at 8:30, but he must be as quick as possible and Apparate directly on the step. Tell him not to come in the house.” 

“Somnis Revelare?” 

“The less you know, the better,” Hermione told him. Phineas looked unimpressed. 

“I am dead, Ms. Granger. What could I possibly cause to happen?” 

“I barely understand it myself,” she admitted. “Please, just go tell the Headmaster.” 

She waited again, hating her own heart for beating so quickly. There were so many options for failure. Her eyes were heavy as she fought against exhaustion. They had gone over the plan so very many times. She was ready for sleep, assuming it would even come. 

Phineas returned much more quickly this time. “He will have it there at 8:30. He will ensure that the boy complies.” 

“Thank you. Tell him I say thank you to him as well.” 

“Ms. Granger” — Phineas looked at the bag on the floor and then back up to her face — “you may keep my frame in your bag.”

“Thank you, Phineas.” She waited for him to vanish, knowing that this permission was as near a compliment as she could expect from the portrait. When he was gone, she put his frame back in her bag and made her way back to her bed. Ron was snoring not far away, but it wasn’t nearly as irritating as normal. She was too frightened that it might be the last night she got to listen to him snore so freely to be annoyed.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven: The Ring

Draco was lying in his bed staring at the ceiling when the knock came at his door, persistent and loud. He tried to ignore it, but the sound continued, relentless. He moved from the sheets, kicking them off his body. He had been given the honor of Head Boy. It honestly felt like as empty a praise as it was possible to receive. He was extremely sure that he had fallen behind several of his classmates the previous year as he focused on his task for the Dark Lord instead of his studies. 

Draco rubbed at his face as he crossed the room to open the door. He hadn’t been able to sleep. He was just laying there, thinking about his mother, wishing he had fought harder to remain behind with her. He pulled open the door to a house elf. The elf stuck out its hand, looking quite afraid at his appearance. He knew he still looked like half a lunatic these days, so he couldn’t even be too irritated by the creature. Draco ignored the expression of fear, turning away as he pulled open the letter. 

Come to my office immediately. 

The letter wasn’t signed, but Draco would recognize the script anywhere. He set the letter on his bedside table before he pulled on a shirt and shoes. Fucking Snape. He hadn’t been sleeping, but he could have been. So far, he was enjoying the privacy of having his own room as Head Boy. He worried far less about keeping up appearances now. He just slammed the door shut and ignored the rest of his housemates. It had only been a day, but it was likely an indication of how the rest of the year would go. The elf had disappeared by the time he left the room. 

Draco made the long trek from the basement to Snape’s office, where he found the Headmaster waiting for him. “Come on,” he led them both onto the spiraling staircase and then back into his office, where he shut the door. “Sit down,” he ordered as he moved around Dumbledore’s desk to sit in Dumbledore’s chair. It was odd to see him there, see him here in this space. It wasn’t right. None of this was right. This eerie sensation was only made worse by the fact that Snape seemed to have changed nothing about the office yet, which gave it more the feeling of a shrine than an office. 

“What is going on?” Draco asked, not bothering to conceal his own distaste for this middle of the night meeting. 

“We need to talk,” Snape told him. “I’ve been … keeping something from you.” 

“I had no idea,” Draco told him, sarcasm dripping from his words. He had been trying to get Snape to tell him what was going on for months, known that something was not quite right since he had been vaguely ordered to conceal his memories. 

“I still think it’s best that you not know the entire truth. It’s safer for you and your mother that way.” 

“Why do you care?” Draco asked, still uncertain what the connection between his mother and his teacher was. 

“I just do.” Snape made it clear that he was not planning to elaborate. 

“I’m not a child. I can defend my mind,” he told the older man. 

“I know that,” Snape agreed, “otherwise, you would be dead.” 

“Then why the secrecy?” Draco asked. 

“There is so much more than you and I at stake here, Draco,” Snape explained, and he glanced up at one of the portraits, an ancestor of Draco’s, Phineas Nigellus Black. His mother had made him memorize his family history back ten generations on either side the summer before his fifth year. It had been a boring endeavour. “I need something of yours.” 

“What?” Draco asked, thrown off by the request. 

“Something of yours to give to someone, a friend.” 

“A friend?” Draco laughed. He had no friends, not any longer. He had no one he could be completely honest with, not anymore. 

“Someone who wants to help you,” Snape told him, and Draco stared. 

“No.” He meant to be stern, but instead the word was hard and cold. “I won’t be party to this until you tell me what is going on.” 

“Dammit, Draco.” Snape slammed his hand down on his desk in frustration. 

“He is telling you the truth,” the portrait of Phineas Black called down to them. Draco ignored him. 

“Tell me why and who it is.” 

“Are you this dedicated to destroying everything?” Snape demanded in a harsh, low tone. 

“I have no idea because you won’t tell me anything!” Draco roared, knowing that it was probably a terrible idea to be screaming at his new Headmaster, a man appointed by the Dark Lord himself to the position. He ignored the grumblings of the portraits he had woken. 

“Tell him,” the portrait said. “He’ll know soon enough anyway. I told you what she is planning.” 

“She?” Draco asked, his curiosity peaked by this. A woman wanted to help him? Someone other than his mother? 

Snape looked back at Phineas. “If I tell you, you must swear to bring me what I have requested of you. When I give you another object in return tomorrow, you will keep it on your person at all times. Do you agree to these terms?” 

“Yes,” Draco responded without taking the time to even consider what he was agreeing to.

Snape stared hard at him, considering. “Go get it first. I need something of yours that I can send to her.” 

Draco glanced down at his right hand. His ring sat there. The one his father gave him. He had been considering not wearing it anymore anyway. It just reminded him of things he would rather forget, and he wouldn’t have to go back to his room if he handed it over. He gripped it with the fingers of his left hand, twisting as he pulled. He dropped it onto Snape’s desk as the Headmaster watched him carefully. “There you are,” he told him. 

“The charm is Somnis Revelare.” Snape pushed the ring back towards him. Draco sighed in frustration as he reached into his trousers for his wand.

“Somnis Revelare,” he repeated. A silver substance, nearly a liquid, poured from his wand, dousing the ring until it glowed for several long seconds. Slowly, the substance seeped into the metal and vanished. Draco felt uneasy at the sightte, but he had questions that he needed answered. “Now tell me.” 

Snape began to speak as he reached forward to grab the ring. “She didn’t tell us exactly what she would be doing with it, but Phineas believes that she intends to use it to communicate with you.” 

“Communicate?” This was not what he had been expecting. Not that he really had come up with any realistic reasons that Snape would tell him to conceal his memories from the Dark Lord, but communicating with some random woman through his ring had not been included in any of his musings. 

“Yes.”

“With me here at school?” Though he had managed to get around it just last year, the school was supposed to be impenetrable. For most people, it still was. 

“Anywhere,” the portrait told him. “If she is attempting what I believe she is, she will be able to communicate with you no matter where you are through your dreams.” 

Draco laughed. It felt deliciously satisfying to laugh again, to find humor in something so utterly ridiculous. “What?” he asked. 

“It sounds ludicrous,” Snape agreed. “I assure you that it is not.” 

“Who is she?” 

“Phineas spoke to her without me.” Snape looked pointedly at the portrait again as if to suggest something. “Think, Draco.” 

Draco looked at the portrait. He didn’t know what he was supposed to be thinking. This woman had spoken to Phineas. Probably here in the castle, but … Phineas Nigellus Black had a portrait in his Great Aunt’s home. He had seen it a few times back when he was young and his mother made him visit. What if the woman had spoken to Phineas there? 

But, who would go there? It was an abandoned Order hideout. 

Oh, Fuck. 

No. 

Not. 

It couldn’t be.

“Give it back,” he said, sticking his hand out. He had no bloody interest in getting wrapped up with her, having her in his dreams. Why on earth would she want to help him or communicate with him? That made no sense at all. Was Snape trying to get him involved in —

“No,” Snape told him. “I’m giving it to her.” 

“To” — he stopped, debating internally if it was safe to say her name —“her?” Draco snapped. “Why? What could possibly be gained?” She was a muggle born. She was the best friend of Harry Potter. She was on the run from the Dark Lord. It seemed like the only thing she could possibly do would be to screw up his life even more. She hated him, and he hated everything she stood for —, or he had, before all of this, but nowbefore he really only cared if his mother made it through all this shit alive. 

“Let her explain.” Snape told him. 

“Through our fucking dreams? Bloody — Have you lost your mind? Do you know how insane that sounds?” Draco asked. 

“I’m very aware,” Snape answered. 

“I don’t want anything to do with this,” Draco told him. This wasn’t okay. What would happen if the Dark Lord realized he had some sort of dream communication with her while she was off stomping around with Potter? It would only put his mother in even more danger. 

“She doesn’t either. I assure you.” Well, that was one fucking thing Draco could believe. 

“How does this work? I have to touch this thing you're going to give me while I’m sleeping or something?” It should be easy enough to avoid that. Snape glanced back at Phineas again, who simply nodded once. “Fine,” Draco snapped, as he moved from the chair. He would hide it away, toss it in the garbage, whatever it took to never experience whatever it was Granger was after. 

“Draco,” Snape called behind him, but he ignored the Headmaster as he moved out of his office. He was nearly back to his bed by the time the smile crossed his lips. This whole night was absolute shit, but an amusing thought had just occurred to him. He had essentially given his Malfoy ring to a Mudblood. He could never tell his father, but the thought of how the man would react if he knew nearly made Draco laugh.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve: Exchange

The morning of September 2nd, Hermione woke, or rather, was still awake, early. She had slept fitfully in short spans before waking up breathing heavy and running over to her stack of notes. At the back of her mind, she was still debating what to leave for Draco. After going back and forth on the matter, she had settled on an old ring her grandmother had given her. She wanted to make sure that her connection to the item was well established, and with the limited items she had brought with her, she was short of options. The last thing she wanted was to go through this, risk everything by trusting Snape, to not have the connection work because she hadn't used a good item. She wouldn't need the ring on the run, but it still hurt to risk never seeing it again by sending it off to Snape who would hopefully ensure that it reached Draco. Hermione had found a chain to hang the ring on before she wrapped it in delicately in paper. 

She put the small package in her pocket before she headed down the stairs to study their plans one more time. Kreacher made her breakfast as she mumbled to herself, double checking every note. When the boys emerged, she started dictating the list to them, adding in reminders about this or that as they nodded, unable to reply with their mouths full of hot rolls. 

By the time they were moving out to the front step to Disapparate, Hermione’s stomach was making her regret her choice to eat anything at all that morning. It was the worst kind of anxiety, worse than her near panic attack in third year during exams, worse than watching Harry face a Dragon in fourth, worse even than their trip to the Ministry in fifth. They knew exactly what they were walking into today which meant they knew exactly just how horribly wrong it could go. 

She took Ron first, Disapparating from the step to the tiny alleyway. She left as soon as he was steady on his feet, returning to the step for Harry. Her hand reached into her pocket as soon as she landed. She was terrified he would notice her drop the small package, but he seemed oblivious to sound of the padded ring hitting the stoop as the brief darkness and near suffocation consumed them. 

The entire plan went nearly immediately to shit, which was only to be expected. Ron had been pulled away to deal with rain in Yaxley’s office, then she and Harry had run smack into Umbridge, who had taken Hermione down with her to the courtroom after making it clear that Harry should be getting out of the lift. She had hardly been able to keep her breath steady as she stood beside the horrible toady woman and tried not to betray her true identity, or at least alert Umbridge to the fact that all was not as it appeared. Before she knew it, Delores was clearing her throat and commanding, “Come along, Mafalda,” and Hermione was left with no choice but to follow her to the left and down the flight of stairs which led to the court chambers. 

She immediately noticed the chill, the despair slipping slowly over her. They were keeping Dementors in the Ministry of Magic. When she finally caught sight of them, towering over the Muggleborns with their vacant faces hidden by black hoods, Hermione nearly faltered. Only the knowledge that any misstep could have them all captured or killed kept her placing one foot in front of the other. Mafalda would obviously have seen this before and showing surprise would not be appropriate. Umbridge led her through dungeon doors on the left, and Hermione was instructed to sit at her side in front of materials she should use to record the interview. Within moments, Yaxley had fallen into the seat on Umbridge’s other side. Hermione stared resolutely forward, afraid of what she may be about to encounter. Delores had sent three sobbing, terrified, Muggleborns to Azkaban by the time Harry whispered in her ear. Hermione jumped, knocking over the ink she had been using. She looked quickly to Umbridge, but the women hadn’t noticed. She continued to interrogate the poor woman, Mary, before her. 

And then, it happened. Dolores Umbridge leaned forward and the locket fell forward in clear sight. Hermione squeaked. She couldn’t hold back the small sound. The sight of what they had come to find hanging before her was too startling. As Hermione was handing the other woman the papers she had requested, she said, “That’s - That’s pretty, Dolores,” pointing at the locket. 

“What? Oh yes - an old family heirloom,” Delores told her, before prattling on about her connections to all of the old Pureblood families. Hermione felt rage flood her, anger at this vile person who had done so many terrible things, this woman who would see her sent to Azkaban or worse, lying about something so stupid. 

She was trying to figure out how to relieve Umbridge of the necklace when Harry shouted, “Stupefy!” 

“Harry!” she shouted back, too startled to remember herself. As Harry began to respond, Hermione noticed that the Dementors had started moving. “Harry, Mrs. Cattermole!” she insisted, cutting him off mid word. 

“Expecto Patronum!” Harry’s familiar stag launched from his wand, racing towards the dementors to protect the woman. Hermione hurriedly grabbed the Horcrux as Harry raced down to help Mary as well. Hermione duplicated the necklace then as Harry hurried her along, but these seconds were not a waste. She needed Umbridge to think they had not taken it. Keeping their mission a secret as long as possible was imperative. 

And then they were following Patronuses back up the stairs, taking a slew of Muggleborns with them, her heart racing as she tried not to let her mind remember all of the many ways that things could go very badly for them before they could get out of here or find Ron, but then Ron was with them, pushing away the woman who thought he was her husband while his eyes grew wide in surprise. Hermione struggled and ultimately lost the fight to hold onto her Patronus as her despair grew in her chest at the increasingly challenging circumstances. How were they possibly going to get out? 

But, Harry kept his head, or seemed to at least, and he had them moving through the Ministry again. By some miracle, they made it to the fireplaces and Harry started commanding the group through them. Just as she had started to think they would be fine, that they might be able to get out of here without any more commotion, she heard, “Seal the exit! SEAL IT!” Her blood turned to ice. Yaxley was running towards them. 

Harry punched the balding wizard beside him as he raised his wand. “He’s been helping Muggleborns escape Yaxley!” he shouted back before he had her hand, pulling her along. She saw a curse fly over Harry’s head, and then they were in the Floo. Harry threw open the door, and Hermione followed. Her ears were pounding. 

“Reg, I don’t understand -” Hermione hardly had any sympathy left for the Muggleborn witch. She knew that she should, but her head and her heart were to occupied to deal with anyone outside of her two friends and the Horcrux in her bag. 

“Let go,” Ron told her. “I’m not your husband, you’ve got to go home!” 

There was a noise in the next toilet, and Harry had Hermione’s hand again. “Let’s go!” he yelled, reaching for Ron’s arm, and then he turned. 

She felt the iron grip of someone else clamp down on her other arm and knew that it must be Yaxley. She shook her arm, desperately trying to pull free of him, but he was holding on tightly as if his life depended on not letting her go, which it very well might. She would have used her other hand to pry him away, but she was too scared to let go of Harry in case they didn’t wind up at the same place, and then they stopped spinning. 

Hermione didn’t think. For the first time that day, her mind was absolutely clear. As soon as she had landed on the front step of Grimmauld she closed her eyes, pulling on her energy to cast a Revulsion Jinx to get Yaxley off of her, and scooped down to grab the package waiting for her on the step. Before Harry and Ron even seemed to realize what had happened, she was pulling them away again. 

XXX

That night, Hermione lay down in the tent and waited until she heard the soft snores of Ron sleeping. Every few minutes he made a soft noise that she was sure came from the pain he was still experiencing from being splinched. She had fixed him up to the best of her ability, but she was no mediwitch. Harry was outside, keeping watch for the first few hours, but with any luck, she could open the small package she had taken off the stoop without him coming in to investigate. She held the paper under her blanket to muffle the noise as much as possible, knowing Harry would realize if she cast a Muffliato charm by the buzz in his ear.

Each tear, each unfolding sounded like an earthquake to her oversensitive ears, but finally, something hard and cold fell into her palm beneath the blanket. Hermione pulled it and the paper, out from under the blanket and nearly cried out at the item before her.

Hermione lit her wand with a soft blue light and stared. Dragons flew up the sides of the cold metal, looking nearly alive in the soft light coming from her bluebell flames. The fire from their mouths framed an emerald crest at the center, and embedded somehow inside of the emerald was a dark and ominous, M. Hermione wasn’t sure exactly what it meant that Draco had sent his family ring to her, but the possibilities were startling. She didn't know what Snape would have chosen to tell him, and not having that control was difficult. Without knowing that information, she wasn't sure she could possibly understand the   
significance behind the trinket. Had he known it would wind up in her possession? Had he any idea of the connection they shared? 

It did not escape her thoughts that she had passed on a ring to him as well, one that she would have rather not given him, one that meant a great deal to her, and it had only been out of necessity. She had not given Snape much time to gather an item from Malfoy. Perhaps this had been given only because there were no other options. Either way, she could feel the connection she shared with the item, a soft knowledge that there was something more to it than met the eye. 

Hermione dropped the paper to the side of her bed, resigned to deal with it in the morning. She wouldn’t risk Harry hearing her get up and coming in to see why she was still awake. She didn’t want to speak to him right now, to look him in the face and know that she was keeping terrible secrets from him about his parents, about the risk she had taken the night before, and about Draco Malfoy. She reached up, unclasping the chain around her neck and pulling the locket from beneath her shirt. Her parents were inside, one last picture of them whole, all three of them. It never left her neck. She hated the thought that she would now be taking a turn with the other locket, laying it atop this one, but she had no choice. It was a burden that she, Ron, and Harry must carry together. 

Hermione pulled the chain down before her, and after one final glance over the Malfoy ring, dropped it onto the chain. It fell slowly down to rest beside the small silver locket at the bottom. She pulled it back up, trying not to imagine what she could be about to face, about to experience. It was possible that she and Malfoy might see each other tonight, might be able to have a real conversation. How would he react to that? How would she? Every step, every moment seemed to have gone by so quickly since she had put her plan in place and now she was here, about the fall into a sleep that may allow her to see him. She was once again trusting someone that Harry and Ron would never support trusting. She closed her eyes, taking several long deep breaths, telling herself that she had decided to trust the magic, to follow it where it was leading her, and right now, it was leading her here, to trying to communicate with him. She lay down, pulled the blankets up, and tried to clear her mind for sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen: Shift

The third time Snape summoned Draco to his office in the middle of the night, he was much more hesitant to go. It was December, and Hogwarts was covered in a layer of thick snow which made it seem much more picturesque than the castle had any right to appear these days. The school, if one should even call it that anymore, was a shell of the institution it had been just months before when Dumbledore had been alive. Draco kept his head down, completed his work, and tried to ignore what was happening around him, as impossible as that was. 

In a move that made his trip to the Forbidden Forest seem like afternoon tea, students were being tortured instead of placed in detention. In many cases, other students were placed in charge of the torture, whether they desired the job or not. Draco himself had been given the task several times by the Carrows, forced to hurt classmates who didn't deserve it, had done nothing that warranted this, but he did it. He did it because his mother was still living at home, trapped in this life that his father had chosen for them, and Draco had continued. 

The second time he had been called, Draco had been given a ring on a chain and told to wear it under his robes at all times. Draco shoved it in his sock drawer and ignored it, or at least attempted to. It seemed to call him, tempting him to grab it late at night as he lay sleepless on his bed, dreading the nightmares that would surely come when he finally drifted off to sleep. He considered throwing it out, went as far as dropping it into the waste basket, but something had made him run back to his room after class to pull it out and shove it back in the drawer. 

He looked horrible. His eyes were sunken and shadowed, his clothes bordering on loose. He was struggling to find the will to do anything. It all seemed so utterly pointless. It felt like there was little to no room for him in this world. He was not good, fighting for the light against the madman attempting to control the wizarding world, but neither was he totally dark. He recognized the madness, he saw the utter destruction that it would bring to the world, that it was already spreading, and he rejected it, but there was nothing he could do. 

He woke up, went to his classes, tried to be inconspicuous, and went back to his room. He avoided those people he had once considered friends. He avoided teachers, especially Snape. He did his work at an acceptable level for the position he had been given, and every so often, he did rounds. His life was empty of any meaning beyond the pain it would cause his mother if it was taken away. Despair was his most common emotion. It had slowly claimed him, inching up his body to his mind until he was engulfed. 

And so, when Snape called him to his office for a third time, he was tempted to ignore it, to turn his back to the door, and close his eyes, but the elf persisted, knocking four times before he swung open the door to receive the message. When he arrived at the Headmaster’s office, he fell unceremoniously into the chair across from him, not bothering to pretend that he wasn’t annoyed with the older man. 

“I could be sleeping you know,” he spat, though they both knew he wasn’t. 

“I just got back from the manor,” Snape told him. 

“What is wrong? Is my mother okay?” Draco moved forward, sitting on the edge of the chair, preparing to spring into some sort of action if necessary. His entire demeanor changed in an instant. 

“It seems that Rabastan was drunk and let something slip to her about your Aunt Bella and the Dark Lord that he was not supposed to.” Snape said this with a tone of regret as he met Draco’s eyes. 

“Is she okay?” Draco repeated, losing his patience quickly. 

“She thought it was a good idea to confront her sister about it,” Snape told him with disgust. 

Draco’s blood felt cold in his veins. “What did she do to her? Is she okay?” 

“I healed her. She’s fine ... now.” The way Snape hesitated before the final word made it clear that she had not been fine before. 

“I need to go. I’ll leave early for break,” Draco insisted. 

“No,” Snape told him. “If you go now, you will only cause problems. Your mother is fine. I made sure of that before I left her.” 

“I can’t just leave her alone! Where is my father?” Draco demanded. 

“He’s -” Snape shook his head. “He’s struggling, Draco.” 

“We’re all struggling. He has no excuse. He put us in this-” Draco stopped, pushing himself up from the chair. He paced away from the Headmaster. “I can’t stay here knowing that she’s alone.” 

“I will go check on her as often as I can, but you need to stay here. You will be home soon enough. She would be livid if you came home early.” Snape rose from his own chair, crossing the room to stand beside Draco. 

“What was Bella doing?” Draco asked. “Why would she trust her?” His mother’s sister was mad. Everyone knew that. It was clear to Draco the very first time he met her. 

“Your mother thought she could reach her.” Snape shook his head, obviously in agreement with Draco about the foolishness of this decision. 

This is why he should have stayed home, to avoid situations like this, to protect her. He was irrelevant inside of these walls, a nothing. At least if he was home, he would know that she was safe. “If my aunt was ever capable of caring about my mother, or anyone but the Dark Lord, that day has long past,” Draco told him with disgust. 

“I know,” Snape agreed. “I know it’s hard for you to be here, but this is where you are needed.” 

“Needed?” Draco laughed coldly. “I haven’t done anything.” 

“Have you been wearing the ring?” Snape asked, his eyes boring into Draco. The old Headmaster, Phineas Black stared down too, suddenly alert. 

“Occasionally,” Draco replied. 

Snape did not seem fooled. “That girl and I risked everything to get that ring to you, Draco. The very least you could do is wear it.” 

Draco wanted to argue back, to refuse, but honestly, at that moment, wearing the damn ring felt like the best course of action. It was the only way he could think of to rebel against the Dark Lord in that moment, against what had happened to his mother. Snape was not going to let him leave the castle early, so he would have to wait for break to see her with his own eyes, but tonight, tonight he could put that damn ring on and see Granger. Speak to her in his dreams, or something. He closed his eyes, holding them tight as he imagined his nightmares. If nothing else, perhaps it would give him a reprieve from them for a night. “Fine,” Draco whispered the word, but it felt like something inside of him had shifted, like the decision he had made was larger than anything he could comprehend at that moment. “I’ll go put it on.” 

“Don’t tell me or anyone else about it unless she tells you to,” Snape commanded. 

Draco glared. “I’m not taking orders from her.” 

Snape just stared back, giving him a nearly smug expression in return. Draco was tempted to hex him, but instead he turned his back to the Headmaster and headed back out of the office. As he made the walk back to the Dungeons and to his room, he tried to push away the anxious feeling coursing through him. It was stupid to feel anxious about seeing Granger. She was just Granger. There was nothing at all special about her except that she had become friends with Harry Potter, and given Potter’s choice in friends, that was hardly impressive in Draco’s eyes. 

But, the feeling persisted, tingling inside his skin as if it was trying to tell him something he ought to already know, but didn’t. He tried to remember the last time he had spoken to Granger, and couldn’t. It seemed absurd that she would even want to contact him, let alone that she would go to these lengths to accomplish it, that she would trust the man who killed Albus Dumbledore to help her. 

As he slid the chain around his neck and moved the ring beneath his shirt, Draco began to wonder if it was possible that this was all a trap, some loyalty test from the Dark Lord that he was about to fail miserably. Fear shot through him, consuming everything, but then he remembered Snape saying, She’s fine … now. Draco gritted his teeth, the fear overwhelmed by hatred, and lay down in his bed, begging sleep to come quickly. 

It was clear when he opened his eyes again that something was very different. He maintained too much control as he slipped from the waking world into what felt like a memory, but he realized was his nightmare. He had hoped that he would avoid this scene tonight, that somehow the ring would stop it from playing out before his eyes, but he still stood motionless, unable to help his mother as she screamed in pain, suffering for his failure.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen: Dreams

As months had passed, Hermione had become extremely adept at managing the nighttime world of dreams and nightmares. She spent nearly every night watching, a spectator, as the film rolled by. Her dreams were nearly always memories or variations of memories turned to nightmares. It had been difficult at first, especially the scenes with her parents, both good and bad, but now it was just one more thing she had been forced to accept, another pain to shove down to be dealt with later, if there ever was a later after all of this. The moments the played before her here were no more daunting than a film would be in the Muggle world. She thought that there was likely nothing left that could shake her in this world of reminiscence and premonition. 

On that particular evening however, likely because of her mastery of her own dreams, Hermione was instantly aware that something was different. Even before she saw his pale hair framing an even paler face, her heart had begun to thump powerfully. He was here. Finally. She could sense the shift, though it was slight, from the nocturnal world she had become accustomed to. 

Months of waiting, months of being sure that he was never coming, but refusing to give up, and tonight he came, the night after Ron had left them. It seemed so fitting, as if the universe was playing a cruel joke on her. She and Harry had moved their camp that day, and Ron wasn't going to be coming back, whether he wanted to or not. The moment they disapparated, leaving behind the last place he had seen them, had been one of the hardest of her life. He was her friend, and he was gone. 

Things had been tense for a while. The horcrux wasn't helping matters, and Ron seemed to suffer the worst of it in his weakened state from his splinching injury. They shouldn’t have let him have a turn until he was healed. She realized that in hindsight, it seemed so clear honestly, so stupid to force him to endure the cruelty of a horcrux when he was already wounded, but it was too late to change anything. Ron was gone. It was an impossible thing to accept. She had chosen him and Harry. She had sent her parents away, and claimed Harry and Ron as hers, her family, no matter what happened. 

But, it hadn’t mattered what she claimed in the end. He was gone. Half of her family ripped from her soul again, tearing her to pieces. She had cried herself to sleep as Harry sat outside to keep watch, not even giving the small ring against her skin a second thought. It had become part of who she was, the girl who wore the charmed ring, endlessly waiting for a boy who would never show. But, he was here. She could sense him, and as she turned her head, he came into her line of vision. 

He stood before his mother as she lay on the ground screaming. Voldemort stood across the room, his presence terrifying. As his wand steadily extended in the Malfoy Matriarch's direction, a cold look of indifference the only sign of any life, if something so lacking in humanity could be called life, Hermione forced herself to focus on the unwavering fact that this was a dream, that the thing before her was not real. 

“Malfoy,” she called. Her voice was unsteady, but she was unable to watch this any longer without letting him know she was there with him invading his most intimate place.

He turned to face her. She had expected him to look anguished, to be distraught, but he looked determined instead. “Granger,” he said, flatly. 

“You shouldn’t watch this.” She motioned at the scene, unsure how he was holding himself together. The first night she had wept uncontrollably for hours. 

“I don’t have to watch it,” he told her, walking closer to her. “I remember this night every time I close my eyes. The image is burned there, waiting for me avenge it.” 

Hermione nearly gasped as she realized this nightmare was born of a memory and not a simple fear of what may come to pass, but she controlled the impulse quickly. Instead, she stared back with wide eyes at Narcissa Malfoy, at what he had seen. “Is she …” she began, afraid of the answer, the word ‘dead’ refusing to pass her lips. That would certainly explain his willingness to show himself here in this place. 

“She was healed. And, now, he has done it again,” Draco told her, ice framing his words. She didn't know how to approach him. This meeting was so unexpected, so different than the way she had imagined it happening in the beginning, and now, well, she just assumed he was never coming. She was thrown off balance. 

“I’m so sorry.” Hermione took a step closer to him, but he shrugged, moving out of the room, travelling down the corridor outside of it. Hermione followed. “Is that why you're here?” she asked, already sure that it must be. Why else would he suddenly appear after months of avoiding her and this place? She needed to ask questions, to provide answers in return. They needed to become whatever it was that their bond had been formed to make them. She was ready for that now, but she had no idea what he was ready for, or what expectations he had. He hadn't seemed surprised at her presence here. 

Draco sighed, running his fingers along the wall as they walked. She had realized that they were in the Manor, and it was beautiful. Behind the surface of pain and anger she felt from Malfoy, she could tell in the way his fingertips ran along the wooden rail and down the wallpaper that this place had not always been so hard for him to be inside of. It was difficult to picture these people she had disliked for so long living a life as a loving family, but she imagined they must have, before all of this. Everything had been different before, and that must even include the Malfoy family. She watched him carefully. 

“This hardly feels real. How can you be here? Perhaps my mind conjured you as some sick coping mechanism.” Draco laughed coldly, and it almost hurt her. She had slowly become accustomed to the idea that they were connected, that she would have to find some way to mend the pain between them, but she had not expected this. He almost seemed to be a shell of the boy she had known and disliked what felt like a very long time ago. “I must be crazier than I thought,” he added, sparing her the briefest of glances. 

“I’m really here,” she told him, trying to keep her voice calm without becoming patronizing. She stopped walking as she was reminded of the reason why she had risked everything to bring him here in the first place. “We need to talk.” 

Draco shook his head, but looked at her, at least. “I’m sick of talking. No one tells the truth anymore, Granger.” 

“I will,” she told him, and it was a promise, though he may not have realized it. There was no reason for her to lie to him, not anymore. There was far too much at risk not to trust in the magic which pulled at them, binding their lives for whatever reason. “I will tell you the whole truth, everything I know. I’ve wanted to tell you for months.” She realized how insane she must sound, how crazy it was for her, Hermione Granger, to be attempting to connect with Draco Malfoy, but she had no time to take things slow. He needed to understand. 

“And, I’ve been avoiding you, Potter’s Muggleborn.” Draco leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “Because life wasn’t cruel enough.”

“Don’t,” she snapped, losing her cool. “We aren’t going to be those people here. If you can’t let go of all that, then there is no point.”

He looked her over, examining her closely as she stayed resolute. “Why am I here?” he asked. 

“I’ve been practicing some things while I’ve been waiting.” She looked around, examining the walls again, wondering if it would still work when they had clearly begun in his mind, if that was even how this worked. “I would like to show you.” 

He shrugged, and she took this for permission. She reached out, not sure if she needed to be touching him but unwilling to lose him when he had finally shown up. She touched his shoulder, and he flinched but didn’t pull away. She was tempted to snap at him again, but held her tongue. She couldn’t expect him to let go of all of it so soon, and who knew what he had experienced. She was reminded of his dark, resolute eyes glaring at Voldemort. He wasn't the same person now anymore than her. 

She closed her eyes then, pushing away thoughts of Ron and the pain associated with his loss, remembering the sensation of losing her breath, struggling to breath as she stood there in the doorway. When she opened her eyes, she was watching herself get closer and closer to passing out in Professor Vector’s doorway. They were at Hogwarts. It was always another pain to the gut to see Hogwarts like this, before it was somewhere she would be carted off from to Azkaban.

“You were fighting with Harry,” she told Draco, who was watching the scene with a confused line between his brows, clearly unsure what she was after here. “I thought I was losing my breath from running, but it didn’t make any sense. It was getting harder to breathe instead of easier and then …” She motioned to her other self as she collapsed. 

“You wanted to show me that you fainted?” he asked uncertainly. 

“While you were fighting Harry. While you were laying on the floor bleeding out, passing out. Come on.” She touched his shoulder again, carrying them away, as he frowned. She moved through her memories to the Hospital Wing later that same evening when her Professors had thought her asleep. 

“Listen,” she told Draco as her eyes flitted open to see them both, seemingly unconscious, and the two Professors arguing. This memory had been hard for her at first, hard to see Professor Dumbledore alive. 

Draco turned to stone beside her. She acted on reflex, not thinking, just moving, and grabbed his hand quickly. He flinched again, seemed to consider pulling it away, but didn’t. He watched the scene, and she watched his face, curious to know what was happening behind those hard eyes, but he had clearly been trained or learned to conceal his emotions quite well when he wanted to. He listened, following her lead, but he did not react. 

When the disagreement was over and Madame Pomfrey was walking towards her other self lying in the bed, Hermione closed her eyes again, taking him to Snape’s office. 

He tried to pull his hand away, the shock of seeing Dumbledore having faded, and she let it go, unsure of how he would react to this scene, to the one where she had put it all together. She took a step away, watching her own wild eyes as she asked if she would have to marry him. To his credit, Malfoy seemed to take the scene in stride, his hard mask continuing to remain undamaged by the news that had shattered her so thoroughly the first time she had heard it. He simply stood at the edge of Snape’s desk, leaning in to see the photograph of Lily Potter, listening with clear attention to their conversation. 

When it was time to go, he moved through the memory, grabbed her arm, and pulled her along with him to a beach, the ocean waves rolling against the sand. By the time she had oriented herself, he was striding away from her, his hand in his hair. She longed to call after him, to force him to tell her what he was thinking.

Months.

Months of being alone here. 

Months of aching for him to show. She hated to admit it, and she wouldn't tell him this, though she doubted she had to, but just feeling him here, knowing that he was okay gave her such an odd sensation of relief and joy. It made no sense. He was him, a Malfoy, and she was her, a Mudblood, but something was different. Any hesitation that may have remained before this evening had faded away as she grabbed his hand and something just felt right in the world. She hated the magic, that it was doing this to her, playing with them, but she wanted him. The want ran deep under her skin, a stream that burbled, calling for her to remain close to him, and this was only a dream. She wondered what in the world it would be like to touch him in the real world now, to feel his presence close to hers. 

She closed her eyes, questioning which parts of what she was feeling were coming from the bond and which parts from her own heart and mind. He was hurting. That much was blatantly clear. He was hurting, and he had decided to trust her, to reach out. No matter what the magic attempted to do or wanted of them, that was huge. He had chosen her, and that knowledge sent a tingle down her spine.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen: Insanity

It was insane, pure madness, and Draco was clearly mad for considering that it could be true. But, it made sense. The day after he had sent the ring the her, the day the ministry had been infiltrated, he had been nearly unable to move from the pounding sensation of fear in his chest for no conceivable reason. He had thought he was having a panic attack, but it was her in the Ministry, her panic, her fear, coursing through him. 

And, then two nights ago, something had happened to him. He had been fine, sitting in his room staring at his Transfiguration essay, and suddenly he had felt like his world was falling apart, a bitter sadness and anger had gripped him, washing over him so completely that he had crawled into bed, unable to do much else but exist. Could that have been her? It must have been. But, how? What had happened to her. 

He spun. She was following, but she stopped quickly when she saw that he had turned to face her. “What happened to you two nights ago?” he asked, needing confirmation from his own experiences that this was real. 

Her mouth fell open, moving as if she couldn’t decide what to say. “It … I don’t …” 

“What happened?” he asked again, trying to take the demanding tone out of his question. 

“Ron …” she pulled at her hair, moving it behind her ear. She seemed reluctant, uneasy about this topic. “He left, went home I guess. I … we don't really know.” We. Potter and her, out there, somewhere, taking on the world. So bloody Gryffindor of them while he was a good boy at school and did nothing. 

“It felt awful,” he told her. He didn’t really know what else to say. There was no one in his life, besides his mother, who could make him feel that way by leaving. Her pain had made him near catatonic. “Were you …” he started, but trailed off, suddenly wondering if she was with Weasley. The thought made his chest clench. Insane, but she already felt like she was meant to be half of some whole he couldn't quite comprehend. It was terrifying. His understanding of what had happened between James and Lily Potter was growing quickly. If they had felt this way, had this indefinable urge that the other person was part of them, course they were together. 

“No.” She shook her head and moved to sit down. He followed. He had made his decision to come here, to be part of this. Running away would fix nothing. At this point, he wasn't sure he could turn away from this even if he wanted to. “Maybe, before all this, but I just ... how could I get involved with someone when … I don’t even know what this means.” 

He could have said something then about them, tried to makes sense of it, but it seemed too soon, too scary to imagine that it was his reality now. He had known whatever was between them was bad. Snape had successfully instilled that in him, but this was so much more dangerous than he had ever imagined. She was already at risk because of Potter, but this … this was something utterly next level. To be involved, to be bonded to a Death Eater as a Muggleborn … The images that raced through his mind made him sick, his stomach turning. He needed to distract himself. 

“So … Potter’s parents.” He couldn’t look at her. He just stared out at the water, trying not to think about what this all meant for their futures and failing. He hadn’t been expecting any of this. It had happened to them, to the Potters, and they had given into the connection, ended up married, and had a kid. The thought had those images racing through his mind again. If that was them ... it was impractical and impossible … but if it was … the things that the men he knew would do to her, to a child.

“Yeah,” she replied simply. He watched her pull off her shoes out of the corner of his eyes and bury her toes in the sand. The move seemed so odd after the darkness that had settled into his life and his mind, but here, in their dreams, he supposed they may as well enjoy the simple things they were now denied like the sensation of sand between toes. 

“So … what are we supposed to do?” he asked, hoping she had figured that out. Snake had seemed confident they were not meant to … well. 

“I have no idea,” she admitted, shrugging. “Maybe … we should start with just getting to know each other.” She laughed as she spoke, and it was easy to understand why. They were in the middle of a war, both worried about the people they loved ending up dead, and something utterly unbelievable was pushing them together, and she was suggesting they get to know one another through their dreams.

It was insane, but insanity was a part of his reality these days. He looked at her, really, truly turned his head to stare at her beside him. At some point along the way, he had missed her growing up. He couldn't have missed the teeth adjustment, considering he caused it, but her hair had settled, full and heavy, but lacking the old frizz that made it look like a bush. Her eyes were dark, filled with her intelligence, the skin around them crinkled with anxiety. Her cheeks flushed just the barest pink. Her breasts were soft curves beneath her shirt, the shape a distraction his eyes lingered on as they travelled down to her hips and the curve of her thighs. 

As he paid each inch particular attention, he felt things that he had nearly forgotten about in this disaster they had been caught up in. His body responded to her, aching at the foreign sensation which invaded his senses; desire. In some crazy way, he wanted her. There was no sense denying it. He could feel the want in his gut and in the tightening of his trousers. In some, not particularly small, way, this reaction was a relief. He was still capable if something so trivial as an erection in response to a pretty girl. It was so utterly normal, he nearly laughed himself, but he was held back by the rush of emotion that seemed to be following the desire, something not solely caused by her body. 

Hermione looked over at him as he stared down at her toes, wondering what it would be like to let his own join hers, to push her down into sand and kiss her, forgetting everything that had ever passed between them, forgetting that she wasn’t just some girl and him a boy who had just realized she was attractive. It was so fucking tempting. The thought was insane, but no more insane than their existence in this place. He looked up as he felt her gaze on him, chocolate meeting a storm, and he knew she could see him just as clearly as he could see her. Somehow this girl he had all but forgotten to pay attention to, pushed from his head as life had take dangerous turn after dangerous turn, knew his secrets and his failings. She had felt him at his most vulnerable, experienced those things with him, and he hadn't even known it. He had felt so alone and during all of it, she had been trying to find her way to him, but why? Why would she ever trust him, ever want to be part of his life? Her best friend hated him, probably wanted him dead. 

“Granger,” he said, her name slipping off his lips with a heavy breath, “why are you here?” He was terrified of her answer, of what it might do to him, of how easily he could be destroyed in this moment, but he asked anyway, needing to hear whatever was hiding behind her mind, whatever she intended. 

Her answer defied the question, ignoring it completely. “Tell me about your mother.” 

“What?” He asked, startled. 

“Tell me,” she repeated. 

Draco looked away, his eyes falling over softly swaying grass. It all felt so real, as if they were really together, really in this place, but he knew he was asleep, back in his bed at Hogwarts. “She found out something she shouldn't have. I don't know what. It got her in trouble.” His hand moved up to brush through his hair, stopping midway as he sighed, resting his elbow on his knee. “I tried to stay home, to protect her, but she forced me to go to Hogwarts.” 

“What is it like there?” she asked. He could still feel her watching him, but he kept his gaze averted. 

“Pretty much as horrible as you would expect,” he told her, shuddering in response to memories better kept to himself. 

He jumped, glancing down at his free hand as he felt her fingertips slide between his, digging into the sand as she locked their hands together. He had no desire to pull away. That something inside of him, something warm and relishing in the feel of her skin against his, urged him to do more, to touch her, to bring her closer. Everything about this was so utterly dangerous and terrifying, but he ignored it. 

“Why are you here?” he asked again. He looked up finally. She was staring right at him, her eyes burning with something he didn't quite understand, but he liked it. She seemed to have made some decision, become resolute about something in the past few moments. He wanted to reach out, to grab her shirt and pull her closer, but before he could even consider it, she was reaching up, her fingertips tracing down the side of his face. 

“I'm supposed to save you,” she told him, and his heart pounded. The words settled over him as if they were wrapping him in some sort of protection that only she could provide. 

Insane, he thought, but fuck, if he didn't want her, if her words didn't make him feel like maybe there was some meaning left in his miserable shit excuse for a life. 

“How are you going to do that?” he asked her, his voice dipping low, as if he was worried someone else might be listening to them here in this place that belonged solely to them. 

“I haven't figured that out yet.” She slid her hand down his neck, shooting shivers of anticipation across his skin as she moved. Her fingers settled over his heart, lingering there as they danced a slow dance of uncertainty before she pressed her palm against the racing beat. She must feel it too. She must have that ache inside of her as well, pushing her towards him, impossible to ignore. “Will you let me?” she asked, her eyes refusing to let go of his. 

He thought his heart must be about to burst in that moment as she touched him, as she looked into his soul and saw his fear, his trepidation, his desire for nothing but his mother's safety and a side of revenge. His tongue darted out, attempting to wet his lips enough to speak. “Do you really need me to answer that?” 

“No.” She shifted, her body moving closer to his, and he felt his fingers tingle, his mind slowly losing the battle it was waging against desire and temptation. 

“Is it always going to be like this?” he asked. His voice was thick with emotion, embarrassingly so. 

Hermione’s face was moving closer to him as she seemed to lose control over her own expression. “I have no idea,” she told him. “I don't understand any of this.” 

Draco gave up resisting as it became clear just how hard she was struggling with her own impulses. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I … I'm sorry I didn't realize sooner. I should have.” 

His words seemed to sober her somewhat, her eyes growing wide. “What?” 

His hands moved, one up to get lost in her hair, and one down to grip her hip, pulling her closer. “I was so stupid. I … I thought … I just want him gone.” 

“I know,” Hermione croaked out, and he couldn't wait any longer. His hand pulled at her again as his head moved forward, closing the gap between them, locking his lips on hers, finally doing what something had been screaming at him to do from the moment he saw her. 

The kiss was like nothing he had ever experienced. He felt it with his entire body, felt something inside of him shifting, clicking into place as her hands snaked up his head, clenching his hair with her fingers. She returned the kids with urgent need, her soft whimper against his lips driving him mad. 

Slowly, the intense, undeniable urge coming from what must have been the bond faded, leaving his own natural desire for her in its wake. He couldn't pull back, couldn't stop holding her against him, running his lips along her, tasting her as his tongue darted between her lips. She moaned at the movement, and it was everything he needed, confirmation of her own satisfaction. This was the last possible thing he had been expecting when he had gone to sleep that night, but now, here on this beach with her in his arms, it felt like any other outcome would have been utterly impossible. He had been denying this, pushing it away, trying to ignore the pull she had on him, but now that he had given in, let it lead him here, he could recognize the connection between them even now, the soft knowledge of her existence in his own soul. She was his, and he was so utterly hers, for better or for worse, no matter what would come of it in the coming fight. 

“I have to go,” she murmured against his lips a lifetime later when she had pulled back from him. “Harry needs to sleep.” 

Potter and her. Alone. Out there. Somewhere. Doing who knew what. Risking everything. “What are you two doing?” he asked, desperate now. 

“Trying to fix this, all of it,” she explained. 

“You're just … you'll be killed,” he insisted. 

“I'm fine. You would know if anything happened,” she reminded him. 

“So, I just sit around and wait for you to get caught and murdered?” he asked, frustration building. 

“No, that's not what I meant.” She pulled back further, frowning as she crossed her arms. 

“Tell me where you are. I'll come with you.” The words were out of his mouth before he could even honestly think through the ramifications of such a statement. 

“No,” Hermione said quickly. “That would only put all of us in more danger.” You have to stay at Hogwarts. 

“I don't care,” he snapped, but it was a lie. He did care very much about his mother, the person who would suffer if the Dark Lord figured out where he had gone. 

“I have to go. We can talk tomorrow.” She pushed up from the ground, still looking annoyed. 

“Fine.” He ran a hand through his hair, feeling anything but fine. Insane. It was all insane; her, this thing between them, the world they lived in. Insane, but fuck if he wasn't going to come back the next night and kiss her again.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen: Hope

Hermione woke with her heart dancing in her chest. Her dream had been beyond anything she could have expected, and her emotions were all over the place, so scattered that she felt a sob rise up in her chest which she did her best to stifle. She had kissed him.

Kissed Draco Malfoy, and, damn, it had felt so right in that moment. Everything in her heart and soul had been pulling her towards him, as if they were two magnets without hope of resistance. It made utterly no sense at all, logic was absent, and thus, she was unsure, afraid, terrified honestly of what would come of this. It went against who she was, so much of what she did these days. She was a girl who loved schedules and plans and knowing what to expect, and life was laughing at her with every turn, changing the rules when she least expected it. 

What in the hell was happening to them? Remus had insisted that a bond couldn't make you fall in love, but that feeling, that something pulling them together until they let go and let it happen, that feeling had been something, had been magic intervening, speeding things along at a dangerous rate. 

Hermione tried to control her breathing as she shut her eyes. She needed to calm down before she saw Harry, before he became even more worried about her. He would have heard her crying herself to sleep the night before, she was sure of it, and now she had woken up an even bigger mess, her emotions at sky high levels. 

As she continued to breathe slowly, she tried not to think about how she could still feel his touch lighting her skin on fire. That moment when the intensity had faded, and it had just been them again kept coming back to her mind, front and center. She didn’t like to be played with, especially not when the stakes were so high. She didn’t want her emotions to become strings for magic to pluck, moving her around the stage of life without her direction. Even as she yearned for him, she knew that she couldn’t let this magic push her into something she wasn’t ready for, that she possibly didn’t even honestly feel. They would have to establish boundaries as they figured out what in the world the next step was. She could still feel it in her blood that she needed to save him, that something about him needed her, that it would mean something important, but she would have to find some way that didn’t include losing herself to what could be false emotion. 

Her breathing returned to normal and her urge to cry buried, Hermione climbed from bed. She needed to relieve Harry. She pulled on her coat and her shoes and left the tent with a book to find him sitting outside, digging a line in the dirt with a stick. 

“Go get some sleep,” she told him as he looked up, eyes glassy and red. She wasn’t entirely sure if this was from exhaustion or crying, and she wasn’t about to ask him. He was dealing with enough right now. They both were. 

Harry dropped the stick, pushed up from the ground with his hands, and wiped them together to clean away the dirt. “Yeah,” he mumbled as he began to walk. She wanted to reach out and hug him, or pat his back, or something, but she just waited for him to disappear before she took her own spot on the ground. 

She pulled open her book, hunting for the page she had last read. She knew it was unlikely that her mind would give her a reprieve from worrying about Ron while simultaneously being angry at him and rethinking her dream encounter with Draco, but she could try at least. 

XXX

Draco struggled to focus on anything the following day. His mind kept wandering, racing, and leaping from one thought to the next. It not only ran over every moment of his dream and interaction with Granger, but also each moment since the day Potter had cut him open, causing Granger to faint and end up in the Hospital Wing with him. If only they had put this all together back then, but if he was being honest, he likely wouldn't have listened to her back then. He had been half mad, driven to near insanity by the idea of that monster killing his mother for his failure. 

By the time his lessons had ended for the day, Draco’s head was pounding, and he returned to his room without dinner. He downed a stashed potion from a drawer and lay in bed, staring up at the curtains, wondering what in the hell he was supposed to do now about Granger. He couldn't quite put a title on the feeling he had been overwhelmed with last night when they had been face to face. It was a sense of responsibility, of needing to protect her, of being part of her. It was intense, coming out of nearly nowhere, swooping in with such a rush that it had been intoxicating. He had needed to be close to her, to feel her safe beneath his fingers, and he had kissed her and tried to find out where she was hiding with Potter. For some ridiculous fucking reason he could hardly comprehend now in the waking world, he had considered these things a good idea when they were safely stashed away among sand and salt in a dream. 

He pushed against his temples, providing counter pressure at the points of highest tension as he tried not to think about what the Dark Lord would do to his mother if he suspected Draco’s loyalties had shifted so severely, because there was no denying that they had. He had no control over it, that much was obvious. Being close to her made it clear that he would do anything to protect her, to keep her safe, not that he understood it or that it made any logical sense to him. It was just a fact, something he now knew as well as his own name. Hermione Granger was his to protect, and no one was going to hurt her. He just hoped that he never was forced to choose between keeping her safe and his mother. He wasn't honestly sure how that would end, and he was certainly not stupid enough to think for a single second that the Dark Lord would not exploit this weakness if he was able to discover it. 

This line of thinking led him back to Snape. Draco was finding the Headmaster harder and harder to understand these days, his own loyalties seeming so conflicted, far more so than Draco had ever imagined. Draco wanted to trust him, he did, surprisingly enough, but trust was another weakness, and he couldn't afford any more of those at the moment, so he would have to continue to be as guarded as it was possible to be around the Headmaster. 

Snape knew about Hermione. He knew Draco had a direct link to her. No matter what Draco did or said now, there was no way to remove that from reality. He hoped that the trail which had led Hermione to trust the man was authentic, that he would keep their secrets, but he certainly couldn't bank on it in the long term. The man was known for playing the fence, and Draco was not intending now or ever to get caught when that particular fence finally crumbled, no matter what his mother and Hermione thought. 

His fingers moved of their own accord, pulling the chain from beneath his shirt, revealing the ring she had sent him. What were they meant to do? What could they be meant to be? It hardly seemed fair for magic to expect anything more from them but to endure the shit storm surrounding them, but nothing about this war was particularly fair. He was certain there was a reason for the bond. It wasn't something that just happened. They were meant for something larger than the two of them, which was possibly even more frightening than how quickly he had shifted from seeing her as Potter’s annoying know-it-all to someone he needed to protect, someone he needed to kiss on that beach for no more reason than it was imperative to his next breath. Something about the two of them was going to mean something, and if history was to be trusted, that something would be something hard and likely not something he would have walked into voluntarily. 

He pushed the ring back beneath his shirt, relishing in the feel of cool metal meeting his skin again. It was funny how quickly he had become accustomed to the weight of it against his chest. It was early. He had skipped dinner. But, he really didn't care. Draco turned, pulling his covers up over his body, and closed his eyes, praying for sleep, praying for her to be there. 

XXX

The shift into the dream was still odd. He was still off put by the amount of control and awareness he had in this version of his dreams, but it also meant that he noticed Hermione almost immediately. She was sitting in the dip at the bottom of a hill, her legs crossed, fingers in the grass. He watched her for a minute, trying not to stare, but needing this moment before she realized he was there to really consider the magnitude of what was happening between them yet again. He was truly standing in the world of dream watching Hermione Granger’s Gryffindor scarf blow around her neck. It was a little chilly. He was sure her cheeks would be rosy from the wind. This thought immediately brought him back to kissing her, holding her tightly. It was damn mad. 

He moved, placing one foot in front of the other, his eyes never leaving her form until he was seated a few feet from her. He hadn’t really planned not to sit right beside her, but he supposed he knew it would be better to keep a short distance while they figured all of this out. It wasn’t right or natural to feel the way he did. Things must need to be discussed. The past must need to be forgiven.

He looked around, unsure where he would find himself if he moved back up the sloping hill. “What is this place?” he asked. 

“The Weasley’s play Quidditch here,” she told him. He watched her run her hand over the blades of grass, her expression pained. Her fingers were red from the cold.He wasn’t really sure what to say in response. What did it mean that she was visiting that idiot’s house in her dream? He didn’t particularly care what happened to any of the Weasley’s, and she would recognize any sentiment to the contrary as insincere. 

“Draco.” She whispered it as she stared into the ground. He nearly excused it as an imagining, but she said it again, tasting the words on her lips. “Draco Malfoy.” 

“Hermione Granger,” he replied. His heart raced. 

“I don’t like when I don’t understand why things are happening. I don’t like not knowing where to go from here.” She was still staring down at the grass, and he wondered if she was avoiding his eyes and deliberately the same way that he had put that extra distance between them when he sat down. 

“I’ll be going home in two days,” he told her. It wasn’t an answer, but he didn’t have one. He couldn’t help her understand something he had no way of understanding. 

Her fingers clenched the ground, surely killing several of the blades of grass within her grasp. “Will you see him?” 

“Probably.” Definitely. She nodded, her eyes never leaving the damn grass. It was getting a bit ridiculous. “Granger,” he said, “Look at me.” 

She pulled several of the many out of control curly locks behind her ear as her chestnut eyes moved up his body, finally meeting his. She looked terrified. Something was wrong. It had to be, but … shouldn’t he feel it, or know, or something? Shouldn’t that be how this all worked? 

“Last night …” she began, but her words faltered. 

Draco didn’t know quite what to say, but he knew tonight was different. That unnatural pull, the ache to touch her, to kiss her, to be close to her was gone. Instead, there was a more natural sense of unease wrapped in a desire … for something. But, that something was so elusive, he wouldn’t even attempt to put a name on it. “It was different,” he told her. 

“I’ve never … it shouldn’t have been possible … magic … it … not that way.” Hermione Granger was incapable of forming coherent sentences. He nearly laughed. He would have if she hadn’t been talking about them, about the very real fact that they were now wading into the unknown without any support. 

“I think it … maybe it was just speeding things along,” he suggested.

“What things? Why are we here?” she asked. She knew he didn’t know the answers, but she asked anyway, sending the words unanswered across the Weasley’s field. 

“You’re going to save me,” he told her, hoping that it would help to make her smile, but she just huffed in frustration as she pushed up from the ground. Draco followed suite hastily. 

“I don’t even know what that means.” Her tone was frazzled, full of energy and irritation. Her hair seemed to reflect her mood, flying about in the wind, unable to be tamed or hold still. 

“You should ask Potter. He likes saving people.” He regretted the words the moment they came out of his mouth. He was sure the way he said ‘Potter’ had not been completely neutral, and she was clearly not in the mood for comedic release of tension. 

“Don’t be a prat,” Hermione snapped. “I just don’t understand this ridiculous arrangement! I, me, Hermione Granger, am supposed to save you in some way from wherever I am, and you’re at Hogwarts or having dinner with Voldemort, and I’m supposed to what? Waltz into the Malfoy Manor and ask him to let you go?” 

“I am not currently in any direct danger, Hermione.” It was true, to a point. He was safely in bed at school. No one had any particular reason to do anything to him there. 

“Don’t lie to me,” she snapped. “I saw those things, the things he did to you.” 

He closed the distance between them, knowing it was a risky move, but also not particularly caring. It was what it was. No matter how they had ended up here, no matter how long it would take them to feel like they had a right to feel this way, he cared about her. He grabbed her hand, and she leaned in to rest her forehead on his shoulder as if they had done this a million times before. He began to rub circles into the back of her hand with his thumb. “It doesn’t make any sense. I suspect it isn’t going to until it does. There is no use trying to force the answer to appear.” 

“It doesn’t mean I can’t try,” she whispered.

“How is … How is Potter?” he asked, the question tasting vile on his tongue. He needed to know. He must know. 

Hermione took a step back to meet his eyes again. He could see her pain clearly reflected in the dark pools staring back at him. “He’s … we’re both just … it’s not easy, what we have to do. We’re … it’s kind of at a stall, and this thing with Ron is ... “ 

“Yeah, okay,” he said, but he didn’t really understand. 

“Did your mother read you stories when you were younger?” Hermione asked. Draco was thrown off again by her question. Her mind seemed to be flitting from thought to thought with no decipherable connection that he could determine. 

“Of course,” he told her. 

“Babbity Rabbity and that sort of thing?”

“Yeah, what else would she read?” he asked. 

“Dumbledore left me a book of Beedle the Bard stories.” Hermione told him. 

Draco stared dumbly back at her. “What?” 

“In his will. Why would he leave me a book of children’s stories?” Hermione asked him, and he was certain she was hoping for some sort of helpful answer, but he had no ideas to offer up. 

“I … He really was mad,” he said instead. 

“Do you think about him?” Hermione asked. 

“About Dumbledore?” He knew that was what she mean. Of course it was, but, he didn’t really want to talk about Dumbledore or what that night had entailed.

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah. I guess,” he shrugged, and the corners of her lips turned down. 

“Harry told me … after …. He told me that you … well …” It was her turn to shrug. 

“What?” 

“That he didn’t think you were going to do it. That you dropped your wand just before the others showed up.” Hermione stared at him, her eyes hard and questioning. 

“I may as well have done it,” Draco told her, dropping her hand. He turned to walk away. He didn’t know why, but he was angry that Potter would tell her something like that. It didn’t seem right. There had been something lingering behind the hardness of her stare, something expecting, something hopeful. He realized what it was that he was running from as he emerged at the top of the slope and the Weasley’s crazy house came into view. 

She wanted to believe that Draco was capable of something more. Hermione thought that perhaps she could change him, help him to fight for the side of the light, help him to achieve something great and different than the darkness and despair which had guided his life until this point. It hurt to see that hope reflected there. It hurt to know that she was filled to the brim with it, that she was confident she would find something deserving in him. He knew that she was wrong. He knew that he would never deserve her, that he could never be the man she was imagining he would become, but he was too afraid to tell her that. He was too afraid of going back to being alone.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen: Want

Draco settled into bed, his mind already wandering into what he would find that night in his dreams. With each visit, his nights felt more real than his days, likely because of the environment of fear and punishment in which the Wizarding World now existed. He wasn't always able to submerge himself into that world, their world, where Hermione met him, where things made more sense, despite how ridiculous that seemed. A soft knock interrupted his thoughts which meant that damn house-elf was at his door again. He pulled on a shirt and shoes and followed the empty halls to the Headmaster’s Office. Snape stood before him, staring at the portraits on the wall, his back to Draco as he entered. 

The attack came without warning, without Snape even twitching, or acknowledging that he had noticed Draco in any way. It presented only as the soft trickle of a droplet of water against his thoughts, a touch so gentle that only the most gifted of Occlumens would have noticed. Draco shifted the direction of the attack without a single instant of hesitation. He locked Hermione deep behind a thick field of Pansy. Pansy on his bed, kissing him for the first time. Pansy’s head in his lap. Pansy at dinner with his parents. Pansy on his broom, her arms around him. Pansy… 

“Good,” Snape said, and the droplet vanished. “Sit.” 

“What the fuck was that?” Draco demanded, holding his ground. 

“Language, Draco,” Snape admonished, turning to face his student. 

“Language? You attacked me!” Draco took a step forward, pointing at the man before him with a hard finger. 

“I tested you,” the headmaster explained. “I went looking for her, knowing there is something to find, and you hid her without hesitation or trail.” 

“I know not to let him see her!” Draco spat the words. His fist clenched, and his heartbeat pounded against his chest at the thought of anyone seeing his moments with Hermione. It had been so quick, so utterly fast, but he had a responsibility to protect her, and he would be damned if he allowed his memories of her to become fodder for a training exercise. 

“Knowing and doing are not the same.” Snape maintained his level voice, showing no sign of his feelings about Draco’s fury. 

“Well, have I proven myself Headmaster, or will I be subject to further invasions of my mind periodically?” Draco sneered at the man. 

“I only have your interests in mind, Draco. Your protection and hers. That is all I am ensuring.” Snape took the seat behind his desk and crossed his fingers in front of his chest as his elbows rested on the arms of the chair. 

“Stay out of my mind,” Draco told him, mouth tight, words filled with venom. 

“Yes, Draco. I will,” Snape agreed. 

His calm irritated Draco even more. He needed to get the hell away from here. “Was there anything else you wanted beside a chance at my most intimate thoughts?” 

“Intimate?” Snape asked, eyeing him closely, probably itching for another attempt. 

“Stay out of it,” Draco warned him. His mind flared with the memories of kissing Hermione, of touching and holding her as he did so. 

“I also wanted to make sure you aren’t planning on doing anything stupid during your time at home.” 

“I’m not planning to kill him or anything if that has you worried,” Draco told him. This entire visit stank of him being treated as a child, incapable of any sense or forethought. 

“I’m worried about you,” Snape told him, which only made the entire thing worse. 

Draco was fine. He wasn’t the one traipsing around the country as a wanted fugitive. “I’ll be a good boy. I’m sure my mother will be just as adamant I toe the line.” 

“The line exists to protect you.” Snape said, and for a moment, Draco thought he might be Dumbledore yet. 

“Is there anything else?” Draco asked, ready to leave, to get back to his bed. 

“No,” Snape told him. 

Draco turned to leave, his steps quick, his rage still burning. 

“Draco,” he heard, but he did not stop. “Tell her… to be careful.” The words travelled towards him as a mere whisper, and Draco nearly turned back, demanded to be told everything the Headmaster held behind his dark eyes, but he kept walking. 

XXX 

She wasn’t there when he arrived that night. He went straight to the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch, plucking it easily from his mind and into the dream world. He needed to fly. Anger, frustration, and desperation were raging inside of him, soaking his mind in their flames. Rays of the sun hit him hard, heating his skin as he pulled up his sleeves and mounted his broom. He needed this. 

He closed his eyes as he kicked off the hard ground and the wind began to blow his hair around his face. He flew higher and higher, revelling in the sweat starting to roll down his face and back. 

Alive. This was what alive felt like. He wanted it back, Quidditch on hot days, worrying about nothing more than his father's approval, harmless sneering at Potter for being a prat. This world, their world, could give this feeling back to him, could remind him of what he once had before the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters. What had he been thinking? How could he have ever imagined a world ruled by Voldemort, a world filled with feasting Dementors, a world where children were forced to torture each other, could ever be the right path? Sure, he hadn't realized exactly what he was signing up for, but he knew enough. He should have known better. 

 

Draco opened his eyes and looked around the Hogwarts grounds far below him. It was so damn beautiful. He lifted his hand to his face and pushed at his eyes, refusing to acknowledge the moisture in them as he brushed it away. He held such a terrible role in its transformation to the cold, terrifying place it was now. How could he ever repay them? He owed everyone - the students, the teachers, her - so much, far more than he could ever repay. He leaned forward, flying straight across the sky, leaving the pitch behind, chasing his memories around the castle, his home, their home. 

He would have likely continued on that way for hours if he hadn’t seen her hair, wild and free, flying about her head below him as he shot down to the grounds with the intention of flipping back up. Potter wasn’t the only one who had learned the Feint. Instead, he leveled out his broom, bringing it to break next to her. 

“You okay?” she asked. 

From the lines on her face, he could tell that he was failing to conceal his emotions from her more and more, or perhaps she just guessed that something would always be wrong. It must be nearly normal now for everyone to be carrying the weight of some pain, fighting some battle day to day. 

“Snape called me to his office,” he told her. He dismounted, and his broom vanished, gone back into the recesses of his mind. He pulled forward a blanket instead, the memory of a soft quilt his mother had covered him with as a child, and moved to sit, and they lay, on the quilt, staring up at the sky. 

“What did he want this time?” Hermione followed him, taking a seat beside him. She looked down at him, and he looked past her to the clouds. 

“To test my occlumency,” he told her. “Make sure I’m not going to get us all killed.” 

“Oh.” He looked at her from the corner of his eyes and saw the hesitance in her eyes. There was a story behind her expression, he was sure of it, but he wasn’t sure that he could, or should, ask what bothered her. 

“Are you worried?” she asked. 

He shook his head. One more day, and then he would be home, finally able to see his mother, to know that she was alive and hopefully as well as could be expected. “I blocked it.” 

“That’s not what I meant,” she told him. “I mean, being there, seeing them. Don’t you think it will all be different now?” 

“Everything is different now.” He never would have told her this if he couldn’t feel the link between them, feel her tied to him inexplicably. There was no point concealing things from a part of your soul.

“So, do you think you’ll be okay at home then?” She pulled her hair behind her ear, but the curl fell forward again as she watched him. 

Draco didn’t really know how to answer her question. He had no idea how he would react to his home, or the place he had once considered his home. It wasn’t home now. It was a shell of something he used to know and love. Now, apart from his mother, the manor held only strangers and despair. He would likely have intense desires to kill the Dark Lord and anyone else that mentioned hunting down Harry Potter. It wasn’t that he had turned over a new leaf and fallen in love with Potter’s survival, but if Potter was killed, well, what that meant for Hermione was honestly beyond considering. He wouldn’t even let the thoughts into his mind. They were shoved away, locked into a box that would never be opened, not not, not ever. 

“I’ll be fine,” he told her. 

XXX

Hermione looked down at Draco, watching his eyes, taking in the way they shifted from thought to thought. She never would have noticed it before, but now she could feel his emotions. They were just low murmurs at the edge of her consciousness, nevertheless she could feel them and see them reflected back at her. Her fingers itched at his obvious pain. She wasn’t sure he was even admitting to himself how much he was hurting right now, and she couldn’t help but relate. 

Everything in her own life hurt just as badly. She had no idea if she would see her parents or Ron again. Her journey with Harry was seeming more and more pointless everyday, and the two of them were each buried in their own worlds, hiding the pain they shared instead of risking hurting their best friend. She wanted to be at Hogwarts again, for this to be real, for Dumbledore to be waiting for them in the Great Hall, for McGonagall to give them an admonishing stare for being so close to each other on the grounds, but none of that was going to happen. It just wasn’t. 

But, here, with him, with a shift of her hand to his chest, and a seizing sort of nervous panic, she could find a moment, a moment where nothing mattered but the careful way she dipped her head as the storm in his eyes raged on. As each inch between them slipped away, she watched his eyes, reached for the murmurs of his emotions, reading him. As she felt anticipation blossom somewhere between them, a shared emotion, his fingers touched her hip. She closed her eyes, leaned in another few inches, and brushed her mouth across his. 

Draco added pressure to her kiss, pulling her gently towards him, urging her to lay beside him. She shifted, allowing her body to align with his, allowing her fingers to bury deep in his shirt. Hermione was sure that there would never be any other experience as exhilarating as kissing Draco. The energy of their emotions braiding together, becoming one inseparable mass was intoxicating. At the core lay desire. It was frightening for her to put a word to the emotion. She would never have admitted to anyone that she was capable of such intense need, that she could want so purely, but Draco could feel it now just as clearly as she could feel the same from him, feel it blurring into her own.

He wanted to say that he was fine, that he would be okay at home, but she could feel the full strength of the battle surrounding the desire now that he was distracted, now that his mind was focused on her, perfectly in sync. He was afraid, terrified of something. She pressed her body just bit closer. I’m here. I’m safe. She kissed him deeply, encouraging him to slide his hand down her body, feeling the shape of her. He hesitated at the line between her jumper and her jeans. She didn’t know what to hope for, honestly, but when his fingertips touched bare skin, a tremor of delight shot through her. He let out a soft sound into her mouth, and his hips pressed into hers. She might pretend she didn’t know what he wanted, might pretend she couldn’t possibly want the same thing, but it would be stupid at this point, stupid to lie or try to hide what burned between them. 

“Hermione,” he whispered.

‘Don’t lie to me,” she told him. 

“I’m not,” he pushed her back onto the blanket, and his lips began to travel down her jaw to her neck where he could suck and play with her sensitive skin. 

“You aren’t fine.” She was finding it hard to talk with his fingers on her belly and his tongue on her neck. 

He moved his mouth up to her ear slowly, taking a languid moment to bite at her earlobe. “I’m going to want to kill them, every one of them, and I can’t. I have to sit there and let them be what they are, what I was happy to be before …” 

Hermione gripped his hair quickly, pulling him back to look at her. “You weren’t happy. Don’t say that.” 

“You don’t know …” 

“I know enough. You forget how much longer I’ve known that I can feel you, that I’ve known to reach for you and see you for what you truly are.” She had watched and waited for him for so long, sharing in his sense of loss and despair each day. 

“Don’t romanticize what I am,” he insisted. 

“I’m not. You did things that I can’t imagine living with. I’m not going to pretend like you haven’t been a horrible person. You were. You made me … You were really and honestly cruel.” He began to pull away, shame and anger flowing between them, but she gripped him tighter. “But, I’ve also seen another side of you that isn’t that boy you were before.” 

“I can’t stop being who I was.”

“People change,” she told him, but she knew it was a flat statement likely to fall on deaf ears. 

“I … Fuck, Hermione.” He pushed away from her, and she let him go, let him move to sit beside her, his head buried between his legs. She reached out to touch him, and he sat up, shaking his head. “I told Umbridge about your group. I took the mark. I may as well have killed Dumbledore. There is so much that I could never repay.” 

“I know,” she told him. “I can't say that it's all okay, but you can choose to be something different now, to have a different impact, and what else can anyone else ask?” 

He chose to come to her. In many ways, the time it took him to come made her feel more assured that he had made a real decision. This wasn't a fleeting curiosity on his part to find out what this was all about. He had festered in the knowledge of their connection before deciding to engage in it. He chose her, chose this life, no matter how hard it may be. 

“I don't know how to be anything different. I don't know how to help you and not end up killing my mother as surely as if I - ” He cut off, burying his head in his hands again. Hermione shifted, moving closer, and pulled him into her. 

“Draco.” She spoke softly, and he looked up again. His face was red and splotchy. It was very clear that he was near to crying, and she felt her heart clench at the sight. She hated that he felt like there was no possible way to keep both people he cared about safe, but she wasn't sure that he was wrong. “I can't tell you it's going to be okay, but I can tell you that I'm glad you're here. I'm glad that this, whatever it is did this to us. It’s something really strange and sort of wonderful to really be part of who someone is, to know exactly how they feel. I want to be here with you right now and every night until we can actually be together, and I know that you can feel that I’m telling you the truth.” Her blood rushed, pounding in her ears. Knowing his emotions was one thing, knowing his thoughts another thing entirely, but she needn’t worry. He closed the space between them, giving her a bruising kiss as he moved her back down to the blanket.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Desire  
“It wouldn’t be like this anymore,” Hermione said softly. Her mother was sitting at the table, sipping tea, a book open before her. As they watched, her father moved to stand behind the chair her mother was sitting in. He leaned down, his lips resting close to her mother’s ear. He whispered something, and her mother smiled softly. Hermione could see a nine year old version of herself stretched out on the floor, a pen in hand, scratching across a notebook.

  
Draco was walking around the room. He looked at the pictures and mementos of vacations. He ran his fingers over throw pillows and gazed out at her father’s car in the driveway. Hermione just kept staring at her parents. Her father’s hand fell to her mother’s should, squeezing gently. Life had been so easy, so effortless back then, before she had known about magic, before she had known who she really was.

“Would they really be living so differently?” Draco asked, and she realized that he knew nothing about her parents or what she had done to them. She looked at him, taking him in, weighing him. She trusted him. There was something terrifying about that, but it was true. She trusted him in a way that words could not truly describe. She had come to know him in a way that went beyond anything she had ever imagined before this bond was created between them. He was part of her, and there was no use not trusting a part of your soul.

“They aren’t here,” she said. “I sent them away.” She moved closer to her parents. Hermione was sure that Draco could see the pain in her face. Losing them had been so hard. Taking their memories, not knowing if she would be able to one day reverse it, had been one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life. “They wouldn’t know who I am anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Draco asked, coming up behind her. She didn’t need to look at him to see the fear in his eyes. It was plainly audible in his voice.

“I erased myself from them.” Her fingers reached towards her mother, but she couldn’t bring herself to cross the final inch of space. Her hand simply hovered, her own pain keeping her from closing the distance.

Draco gripped her arm, turning her towards him. “You … Can you reverse it?”

“I don’t know. I created the spell myself. I had no way of testing it.” He put a finger under her chin and forced her to meet his eyes.

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s better that they forget me, never know I existed, than be murdered in their beds because they had the misfortune to give birth to a Mudblood.” The word tasted dirty on her lips, and she saw the regret flash through his eyes.

“Hermione .. ” he started, but words seemed to fail him. She knew he could relate. He could surely imagine what losing his mother this way would be like. She didn’t want to look at his eyes any longer. She didn’t want to feel this pain.

Hermione pulled back and moved for the steps up to their second story. She took them quickly, knowing each step deep in her bones. Her door was cracked. She pushed it open and took in the sight of her room. This wasn’t her nine year old bedroom. This was her room as it had looked that last night, the night she took everything that mattered from her parents and fled to the Weasley’s. Photographs of people she loved smiled at her from around the room. Some of the figures moved, waving at her, while others stood still, a moment captured in time forever.  
She moved the few steps to her bed, sitting down at the edge, her hands brushing gently over the light gray duvet. It had been a pale yellow when she had been the young girl downstairs. A few moments later, the mattress gave as Draco sat beside her. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she told him. Help me forget, her heart whispered.

He seemed to understand. He leaned forward, his lips meeting hers. He was slow at first, gently kissing her with sweet affection, as if he wanted to continue the conversation they had been having, but she had no interest in sweet and slow. It left her mind too open to thinking about her broken family. She clutched his shirt with her fingers and pulled him closer as she let her back fall down onto the bed. He followed her lead, deepening the kiss as she scooted back to allow them both to lay out on the bed.

Her fingers were at his waist, pressing into his jeans, aching to move up and feel his skin beneath them. His teeth pulled at her bottom lip, tugging it gently. This all seemed to be happening so quickly, but at the same time, they had been so reserved so far, holding back from what she knew they both wanted, what they both needed. Neither one of them had brought it up. It just surrounded them, a fire that consumed everything else around them, pulling them tighter and tighter together as they tried to cool the heat without fully giving in to the desire. She had never experienced anything like it, and she imagined it was a unique sort of feeling, the combination of their two needs erupting below the surface.

Finally, she gave in, her fingers unclenching as they pushed his shirt up. Draco’s tongue slid into her mouth as he hissed in approval of the touch. As if in realization that she had broken some unspoken barrier, his own hands moved quickly down to the hem of her jumper and pushed it up as well. Skin touched skin. It burned. She was sure that they must have lit an actual fire between them with the contact of their stomachs. Somewhere in the back of her mind, something tried to remind her that this was a dream, that it couldn’t be truly real, but nothing had ever felt more real to her in her life than Draco felt when he was touching her. His shirt had reached his arms, and Draco didn’t hesitate for a single second before shifting his weight and breaking their kiss to allow her to remove it. He started to move back down to her, but Hermione pressed her palm into his chest, stopping the movement. She stared at the deep scars across his chest.

Draco’s eyes flitted down, realization dawning. She felt his emotions shift, shame and embarrassment blossomed at the edges of his desire. Her palm moved, allowing her fingertips to trace the raised lines. “This was … this is why I fainted. This is why I realized …” She whispered, as if he didn’t know their secret.

“I guess I should be glad for them then.” Draco grabbed her hand and moved it away.

“I guess … I am,” she said dumbly. It was odd to be glad that he had been hurt, that Harry had hurt him, but it had ignited all of this, and despite everything, she wouldn’t let go of this. This was too much a part of who she was now.

“Sadist are you, Granger?” he teased. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“I’m not …” she began, protesting, but he shut her up by dipping his mouth down to kiss the top of her breast as he shoved her jumper up further. She pulled her arms up above her head and let him remove it. It was his turn to stare down at her, and she felt a warm flush spread across her chest and face. His hand scooped one bra covered breast in his hand and he squeezed gently, marveling at her body. She tugged at her own bottom lip now, watching his face closely.

“Hermione …” he said, need thick in his voice, and pressed against her core.

“I know,” she replied, shifting her hips against his.

“Want you,” he growled, dipping down to kiss her again. Hermione pressed up into him hard, her skin alight with new flames as they touched. They clutched at each other desperately, and Hermione tried to shut out the part of her mind that was reminding her that she didn't know the first bloody thing about any of this. Her experiences were limited, and she had surely never been this close to naked with a boy. Draco seemed to be doing just fine, but she wasn't sure what his own experiences were either. What if she did something wrong? What would happen if they … and then in real life … she would still be a virgin right? Or would she? How they hell did dream sex work?

His fingers were deep in her hair as he moved against her, his breath hot against her mouth.

“Are we …” he asked.

“I don't know,” she replied.

“I want to touch you,” he told her. “I want to touch all of you. Can I … is that okay?”

“Yes,” she said, aching heat pooling between her legs at the thought. Draco moved his hand to the button of her jeans and tugged until it came apart. She wiggled as he leaned back on his knees and pulled them down, freeing her legs. His eyes never wavered from her knickers, his breath coming in deep, heavy bursts. He discarded her jeans, and his fingers began to move up her leg.

Shivers of delight raced through her, mixing with nervous anticipation. As his fingers reached her knickers, he shifted his thumb over her core, stroking slowly, back and forth, causing her to arch as she sighed softly.

And, then he was gone. Hermione sat up quickly, staring around her room, but he wasn't there. She nearly cried in frustration, her body begging for release as her mind flitted between all the many terrible things that could have pulled him from his dreams.

XXX

Draco jumped at the sound of his mother’s voice. “Draco,” it demanded loudly, shaking him.

“Wha-" he replied. His cock was still rock hard, his desire for Hermione racing through his blood. She had been so damn beautiful laying nearly naked below him. He realized with a start that he had been pulled away from her to his bed in the manor. “Fuck,” he exclaimed, pushing himself up, grateful for the blankets covering him. He couldn’t imagine that Hermione was going to be happy with him for vanishing. He tried to pull on his regret, sending it towards her, hoping that she would feel it.

“Get up,” his mother said severely, interrupting his thoughts.

“What is going on?” Draco asked.

“Breakfast. You’ve been locked in here long enough.”

“I thought I was supposed to be staying out of the way,” he told her. He’d been home for a day now. He had been anxious to lay eyes on her the moment he got off the train, not sure what to expect. She seemed as fine as could be expected, and had refused to talk to him about what had happened, claiming that it was none of his business. They had argued, and he had disappeared to his room with the intention of staying there as much as possible.

“Stop acting like a petulant child and get dressed. I’ll see you in my sitting room for breakfast.”

She slammed the door shut behind her, and he fell back onto his pillow, wishing desperately that he could go back to sleep and find Hermione again. His cock twitched as he thought of her nearly naked below him, the flush spreading across her breasts making him want her even more. “Fuck,” he muttered again. He pushed out of the bed and headed for his bathroom. He was going to need a long shower and some time with his hand. His damn mother could wait.


	19. Chapter 19

The night before Christmas, Draco sat in his mother's chambers and sipped at wine as they listened to music. The pitch black sky blocked his view of the grounds. Nevertheless, he kept looking, his mind wandering incessantly to Hermione as he wondered what she was doing. He knew he wouldn’t find her out there. He knew there were no answers, but he looked for them anyway.

Her thick sense of unease had been palpable most of the night, permeating him in a way that was new and frightening. Something was going on. She hadn't warned him of anything. She hadn't hinted that they were going to be doing something stupid or risky. They had spent another night together, testing the limits of their patience, exploring each other’s bodies, and she had said nothing. Possibly, she was keeping things from him, but why? 

Surely, she trusted him. How could she not? The bond between them made it clear to him how she felt about him, How she felt about most things. He knew she was speaking the truth to him every time she opened her mouth without having to second guess her in the slightest. Perhaps she thought she was protecting him from something. He knew she and Harry were doing something, working on something. It was possible she thought that she couldkeep him safe by keeping him in the dark. She clearly hadn't learned that keeping people in the dark never resulted in anything but pain and regret. 

Regardless of her intentions, it didn't change the unease festering inside him, rotting in his stomach as his mother smiled softly at him. His mother was trying very hard to make Christmas normal, to look happy, but he couldn't believe that either. It was all a facade. The only thing that mattered anymore was survival. That was all they had now, the ability to survive. 

Draco glanced back at the window, but it mocked him, staring blankly back. “Draco,” his mother said, and her tone gave him the impression this wasn't the first time. 

“Yeah,” he tore his eyes away, taking in the sight of her again. She was wearing a new dress. It was probably a Christmas gift from his clueless father. There hadn’t been many new dresses in the past couple of years. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, concern etching the lines in her face. He had never really noticed them before all of this. Before the Dark Lord had decided to use their home as his base of operations, his mother had always seemed young and vibrant to him. Now, she seemed to have aged considerably each time he laid eyes on her. 

“Of course,” he replied, sipping at his drink again. His heart raced, but he had no idea why. He just knew that Hermione was extremely nervous about something. He couldn’t get anything else from the situation but that. The emotion was incredibly intense. It mixed with his own concern for her and the combination was overwhelming. It was one of the most distracting sensations he had ever felt in his life. For the first time, he began to really understand why she had passed out last year when he and Potter had fought. 

“Severus,” his mother said then, smiling beyond Draco to the doorway. 

“Happy Christmas, Narcissa. Draco.” He gave each of them a curt nod before he sat down in the other arm chair. 

Narcissa stood, moving toward the towering tree in the corner of the room. It sparkled brightly in steep contrast to the mood that filled the Manor. “Thank you for stopping in. I wanted you to have this.” His mother reached down for a small package, a gift for Snape, and Draco felt a rush of hot terror shoot through his soul. 

“Shit. I have to go,” he said suddenly. He pushed up from the chair, his knuckles white as they gripped the wood. 

“Draco, You certainly are not.”

“What is it?” Snape asked.

“Something is wrong. Very, very wrong.” He checked his pocket for the small bag of supplies he had packed and pulled his wand out from his other. “Mum, I love you, and I'm sorry.’ 

“You aren't going anywhere!” she snapped, but Draco ignored her. There wasn’t time. There was no time at all to explain, to tell her anything at all, to truly apologize. 

“Be careful,’ Snape told him. 

“It’s really bad,” Draco said. The words made him even more afraid of what he would find as he felt her fear growing and expanding inside of him.

“Go!” Snape told him. As Draco closed his eyes, he saw Snape’s arm moving to block his mother from grabbing him. Draco concentrated on brown eyes and wild hair, the bond he felt with her, the tie between them felt almost like a string that he could grab and follow to her. Hermione. He needed to be with Hermione. 

He turned in place and vanished. 

XXX

Draco landed and immediately knew something was wrong. As he opened his eyes, he heard Potter’s voice screaming. "He's coming! Hermione, he's coming!" Who was coming? 

The next thing his mind registered was the wild hissing of a giant snake and utter chaos. Nagini. They were locked in this room with Nagini. Shelves were smashed from the walls, china few through the air, and Potter jumped towards him, his eyes wide. The Dark Lord was coming. 

“Malfoy?” Potter screamed as he bent down to grab at a dark shape at Draco’s feet. The shape shrieked with pain, and Draco realized it was Hermione. 

“Hermione!” He moved quickly to follow Harry’s movements as he tried to pull Hermione across the bed. Behind Harry the giant snake was rearing again, but Potter seemed distracted, shaking his head. 

Hermione cried out again, but turned towards him, opening her eyes. “Draco?” She whispered, but the snake lunged at the three of them as they leapt away, and Hermione turned towards it. She seemed to summon her strength and screamed, "Confringo!" Her spell flew around the room, exploding the wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at them, bouncing from floor to ceiling. Draco grabbed at her clutching her arm tightly as Harry leapt from bed to broken dressing table before leading them straight out of the smashed window. 

Draco felt the pull at his navel and prayed that they would all make it to the other side in one piece. 

 

XXX

“What in the hell were you thinking?” Draco screamed at Hermione. They were inside the tent Harry and Hermione had been living in for months. Harry Potter lay unconscious on the bottom bunk of the beds, and the pair of them were standing feet apart from each other, each with a look of stubborn anger across their face. 

“I was thinking that Harry and I have a damn job to do!” Hermione snapped back at him. 

“Oh, a fucking job? A job? Was that job to get bloody murdered?” he asked her. He wanted to shake her. She had almost been killed by fucking Voldemort. 

“We were doing just fine without you!”

“She was going to kill you, Hermione! HE was coming.” 

“I was handling it.” Hermione insisted. 

“You were not handling it. If you would have just told me …” 

“I can’t just wander around telling everyone where Harry and I are heading, Draco.” 

“I’m not everyone. You know that.” 

“You’re just mad that -” 

“That you were all the sudden so terrified that I thought he had found the two of you and was going to murder you?! Yes. I am actually. I’m livid.” 

“We’re fine. You should have stayed with your mother.” 

“I can’t do that.” 

“It’s very easy. You just sit on your pompous ass and don’t interfere.” 

Draco gripped her then, pulling her roughly towards him and kissed her hard. “I can’t just let you wander around with Potter while I sit on my pompous ass you idiot.” 

“Go home,” Hermione told him. 

“No,” he hissed. “I’m not leaving you.” 

“Why? This is no place for you to be! You’re putting yourself and your mother in danger.” 

He kissed her again, pulling her hard against him, their bodies connecting in a hard rush of limbs fighting for domination. Her back hit the pole in the center of the tent, and it shook in response. He pulled his lips away, moving them to her ear. “I can’t leave you. You know why,” he told her huskily. His fingers dug into her hip and hair with bruising hardness. 

“No. I don’t,” she told him, but she was lying. She could feel his anger radiating inside of her, coursing through her blood. Behind the anger, a heavy dose of terror urged it on. 

“You’re mine,” he told her. “You’re part of me. You’re my soul outside of my body. I can’t … fuck, Hermione. I don’t even understand it, but I can’t lose you.” 

She shuddered at the intense ocean of emotions she was feeling, his and her own, a mixture of their fear, anger, confusion, need, and something she couldn’t even admit to herself. “I know,” she told him. He kissed her again, their lips melding as their bodies relaxed. They kissed softly as tears began to roll down her cheeks. Draco’s hands became soft and reassuring, trying to comfort her as he held her. 

“I’m not leaving,” he whispered against her lips. 

“Good,” she whispered back. Her arms moved behind his neck, pulling him closer. 

“What … the bloody hell … is going on?” Harry asked, barely rising from his place on the cot. Hermione pulled away from Draco and moved to his side quickly.


End file.
